CARNIVALCruise Line is to terminate its contract with general sales agent Equity Cruises and set up its own UK office.
All 23 Equity staff will join Carnival, including UK sales and marketing director Lynn Narraway.
The 12 Equity staff working on the Carnival brand have already started working directly for the cruise giant.
Equity will continue to run the Windstar and Holland America brands until April 1, then they and the staff working on them will be brought into the in-house UK operation too. Staff will all remain at the present office in Great Eastern Street, London.
Carnival’s other brand, Cunard, which has offices in Southampton and London, will continue to be operated separately.
Narraway said the move followed the growing amount of cruising business being generated in the UK.
“The business has grown five times in the last four or five years, and Carnival decided now was the time to open its own office. We believe the business is there, and the potential to expand it even more is there.”
Narraway said Carnival took 20,000 passengers on cruises in 1998. However, she plans to more than double volumes to well over 40,000 in the next two years.
Meanwhile, Carnival has just published its first-edition January 1999-December 2000 brochure, featuring Paradise, the cruise line’s non-smoking vessel, and Carnival Triumph, the 103,000t ship due to be launched next July.
Paradise will operate seven-day cruises out of Miami in the eastern and western Caribbean. Prices start at ú775.
Carnival Triumph will also operate seven-day Caribbean cruises out of Miami, but its prices start from ú965. A range of early discounts are available on all Carnival products.