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Carnival UK ‘constantly in dialogue’ over commission and pricing, says Tempest

Carnival UK is constantly in dialogue over its commission structure and pricing strategies, says chief commercial officer Gerard Tempest.

Speaking at the Selling Cruise Conference, Tempest said the two topics were part of an ongoing conversation between agents and the cruise company.

P&O Cruises and Cunard increased their commission from 5% to 7.5% at the end of last year as a result of agent feedback from its Agent Matters initiative.

“Remuneration continues to be an ongoing event,” he said.

“We set out a strategy to say ‘this is what we were going to do with base commission’ and then also put some incentives in place as well. We also have ongoing dialogue about our pricing strategy and what we are intending to do in terms of reducing the late discounting in the market.”

When asked whether he expected there to be more changes on pricing and commission, Tempest replied “never say never”.

“The things we put in place over the last year we continue to review,” he said. “Some of the things are long burn, so it takes a while before we can understand the outcome of the changes we have made.”

However, Tempest insisted his role at the cruise line wasn’t about correcting past errors with commission.

“My job coming in was to steer the company to a successful destination in terms of its commercial performance. The changes I’ve made, I made for the better of the business to help us get there, not because we were unhappy but because we were at a point in time when we wanted some movement to take the business somewhere else.

“The industry has been through a recession which has been tough, but we appear to be coming out of that.”

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