P&O Cruises and Cunard were always prepared to re-adjust commission again after the cruise lines dropped down to 5% almost three years ago.
The controversial move was said at the time to be a bold bid to stop the rampant agent-led discounting in the UK market.
Carnival UK Chief executive David Dingle said the decision to put commission levels back up to 7.5% at the end of the last year was not a U-turn, but instead something they had always been prepared to do.
He said it had been important to make sure agents didn’t return to rebating and explained how happy he was to see that the lines were now “winning back some very valuable friends”.
Dingle said that, prior to the decision, testing had been going on behind the scenes to see what would happen if the Carnival UK brands upped commission levels.
“It wasn’t a U-turn; there was always a plan and we always knew that we would have to adjust it,” he said. “We needed to find out and we had been testing it since going to 5% to see what would happen if we increased it.
“This was all going on behind the scenes and no one really knew it was happening or noticed. We had to do the testing because we had to reassure ourselves that if we increased it that we wouldn’t go back to the old ways.”
Talking about the initial decision to drop commission, Dingle said: “I believe that something had to be done to break away from the excessive levels of discounting that were going on because so many travel agents actually hated that it was happening.
“And we had no way to stop it apart from what we did. It was really difficult and it was very painful. I said at the time that we wouldn’t get it right first time and we will probably have to make changes. And we had to do it as the market leader.
“It corrected something that needed correcting. It was a big risk for us, but now I think we are past all that. We have leveled the distribution channels and now is the time to begin to increase travel agent remuneration.”