Celestyal Cruises’ Janet Parton looks forward to rewarding some lucky agents with fabulous prizes during this evening’s Travel Weekly Agent Achievement Awards 2024. Andrew McQuarrie reports.
Q. Why has Celestyal decided to sponsor this year’s AAAs?
The AAAs is the event highlight of the year. It’s an opportunity to showcase and reward fantastic talent within the travel industry. I especially love the opportunity to recognise new and emerging talent – it’s important that we support the future stars in travel.
Q. Which products are you focusing on at the moment?
Our seven-night Desert Days itineraries, homeporting out of Doha, are a big focus for the UK market. The trade has really got behind these sailings – we appreciate the support. We have departures from November 2024 to March 2025 and winter 2025 has been on sale since the end of June 2024. For thrill-seekers, we have grandstand tickets to both the 2024 Qatar and Abu Dhabi Grands Prix. And not forgetting our core Mediterranean programme – we have three, four and seven-night cruises including the new Heavenly Adriatic itinerary visiting Croatia, Montenegro and Italy. We’ve introduced seven new countries this year alone. We are continuously developing our customer offering, focusing on curating unmissable experiences. Commissionable shore excursions are always a hit with our agent community, and the new National Geographic day tours are a popular addition to our award-winning onshore experiences. Led by expert guides, they showcase the rich cultural and natural heritage of each destination, while contributing to sustainable tourism practices worldwide. And there is much more to come – watch this space.
Q. How are you supporting your travel agent partners?
In the past nine months we have increased our sales and trade marketing teams who are dedicated to the UK trade. We’ll shortly be launching a new trade portal full of amazing functionality to make travel agents’ lives easier and we have regular booking incentives. On top of that, we’ve had a full brand refresh, introduced new itineraries and two new ships, all of which should make selling Celestyal much easier.
Q. How has 2024 been so far?
We are so grateful for the business travel agents have given us in 2024. Wave was our biggest to date, hitting all targets, plus we are reaching full occupancy during the summer, and are seeing high three-digit growth year on year and more agents than ever before selling us. The support has been overwhelming. We‘re expecting travel agent growth to continue as we expand the business and our deployment in the Arabian Gulf. There are plenty of opportunities for travel agents to support Celestyal and earn great commission. We come into 2024 with a completely refreshed fleet, seven new countries and 12 new global ports, on top of our much-loved Greece and Mediterranean cruise programme. We are finding our sea legs on a more global stage. We know we do the Greek islands and Mediterranean like no other, but we’ve heard from our customers and agent community that they want more destinations, bigger itineraries and a chance to discover more with Celestyal. A total of 86% of our customers tell us they would cruise with us again, and with our expanded network we are providing greater options and selling opportunities for both new-to-brand and repeat guests.
Q. Do you have any advice for first-time guests at the AAAs?
Be in the moment. There is so much to see and do, so take it all in. First-timers will be blown away by the entertainment and some lucky agents will even walk away with fabulous prizes!
Q. Favourite destination?
Too many to choose from . . . South Africa, Greek islands or India.
Q. The last holiday you went on?
I’ve just returned from a US road trip taking in Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans. I loved every second of it.
Q. Dream trip?
I’d love to do the Calgary Stampede. Yeehah!
Q. One word to sum up the AAAs?
Exciting.