See our gallery of the Clia River Cruise Conference
Top-performing travel companies and stand-out agents have been honoured at the inaugural Clia River Cruise Excellence Awards this weekend in Amsterdam.
The award for river cruise ambassador of the year went to Margaret McCorriston from Planet Cruise who said: “I am very passionate about river cruise, it is how I holiday and something I have always been interested in.
“We are seeing a growth in people who are interested and I sell to a lot of ocean cruisers and also people who have never cruised before.
“As we see river cruise increasing the amount of active excursions they have I think this is when we will see younger people wanting to holiday on them too.”
Blue Water Holidays agent Juliet Archer took home the award for 2016 Clia river cruise agent of the year, with Sarah Bolton from Travel Counsellors received a highly commended honour.
Product and commercial director at Cruise.co.uk Tony Andrews took home the gong for best marketing promotion of river cruise for homeworkers.
The award for best river cruise newcomer went to ROL Cruise (previously known as Readers Offers).
Commercial director, Andrew Say, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have won this as river cruise is a very important part of our company.
“River cruise is a growing area of the industry and we plan to increase our focus on it over the next few years.”
Awards for best marketing promotion in retail was awarded to Baldwins Travel and the Cruise Village.
The best overall performance award in the north went to River Voyages, part of Cruise 118, while Iglu Cruise won the award for the south.