Cunard and P&O Cruises senior business manager Trevor Dupont is to retire after 39 years.
Dupont, who is well-known in the trade, will take early retirement at the end of Feburary 2017.
He started his career at P&O in 1977, managing the reservations department and spearheading the transition to the Southampton office from London.
Dupont also played a key sales role when the company was demerged from the P&O Group in 2000 following its merger with Carnival Corporation in 2003 to form Carnival Corporation & Plc.
He went on to lead the sales operation for the Ocean Village brand and create a new multi-brand sales department selling P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises, Cunard and Ocean Village.
Carnival UK chairman David Dingle said: “Trevor has been a great colleague, and more importantly a close friend, throughout our careers together. He is eternally cheerful, enormous fun to be with and an outstanding people person.
“Like his father before him, he is a P&O lifer, an incredibly loyal company man. Throughout his long career he has been a great friend of the travel agent community and has been our continuity with the trade over four decades.
“All of us, both within and beyond Carnival, who have had the pleasure of working with Trevor owe him enormous gratitude, and we wish him a wonderful retirement.”
Carnival UK vice president sales Alex White added: “We will be incredibly sorry to see Trevor leave the company. He is a well known and much loved figure in the cruise industry and has been a great asset to Carnival UK for many years.
“Trevor’s knowledge and experience of the travel trade has been invaluable, both cementing strong relationships with many of our travel agent partners and leading a successful team.”
Dupont said: “It has been an absolute privilege to work for such a successful cruise company. When I first started at P&O Cruises at the age of 16 we had two ships and no computers or internet and I had a full head of hair! I’m extremely proud to have been a part of the brands’ growth and development to the thriving companies they are today.”
He added: “I will leave with some fantastic memories, in particular the people I have met and worked with. I thank them all and I am sure I will meet many of them on board as I sail through my retirement.”