Avalon Waterways hosts key trade partners on a three-night Danube cruise to showcase its product and debate the outlook for the river cruise sector. Lucy Huxley and Stu Parish report
River cruise operators and agents discussed prospects for the sector during a sailing from Budapest to Vienna on board Avalon View. While hailing the industry’s strong revival and its higher price point compared with ocean cruising, they also highlighted the need to give agents the tools, training and experience to sell river cruise.
Giles Hawke, Avalon: “During the pandemic, river cruising was fortunate to resume before ocean cruising. Clia convinced the UK government that we were a different product to ocean cruise and we dropped our prices considerably to attract people to try it. Prices were at a level where you almost couldn’t afford not to go!
“We had our best-ever year in 2022, so the offer was worth doing. People experienced river cruise for the first time and saw the value they were getting, and many rebooked for 2023.
“Ocean is taking priority, especially in agencies that still have a reduced workforce, but river cruise sales are coming back. The marketing is picking up and agents are seeing the opportunity – just look at the number of agents who went to Clia’s RiverView Conference in March. At least 10 agents who attended it have contacted our call centre to make bookings since. We expect to be back to 2019 levels in 2023, which was a good year for the UK business.”
Janet Parton, Avalon: “Our average selling price was £2,800 in 2018, but it’s up to £3,700 per passenger, so although volumes are down, the average selling price is offsetting the numbers. And our repeat rates in the UK are more than 60%. It’s a great sector for agents to focus on as the value is great and customers tend to book another again once they’ve tried it.”
Hawke: “The river cruise sector is a bit like ocean cruising was 20 years ago. We think people know about river cruising, but there are so many new entrants into the market. These people need to understand why the price point versus ocean is higher – because absolutely everything is included: drinks, excursions, gratuities and everything – which means agents earn commission on all facets of the trip.”
John Sullivan, Advantage Travel Partnership: “We’ve reached the point where members are saying they’re getting a lot more interest in river cruising as a holiday choice.
“River cruise is up more than 35% versus 2022 [in revenue], and is outperforming ocean. A lot of that has been price-driven, which has resulted in members selling up the ship, increasing the average selling price.
“We now have more than 300 active individual members signed up to Latitude [Advantage’s cruise community], an increase of over 200% versus pre-pandemic. A key focus for Latitude is to ensure members have all the tools and knowledge they need to be river cruise experts. We’re working closely with our river cruise partners and have some exciting opportunities coming soon.
“We used to call this group Cruise Champions, but it alienated some members and some customers, so we called it Latitude and just get members to focus on the experiences. It’s about changing people’s perceptions and it’s working well.”
Nicki Tempest-Mitchell, Barrhead Travel: “We’ve had a really good run on river cruise; we’re 152% up on revenue and 102% on passengers compared with last year. We sent 10 staff to Clia’s river conference, plus we put some product training and a dedicated product head in place to really champion river cruise and look after messaging and marketing. They ensure river cruising gets a good share of voice in the organisation.
“It’s the marketing investment from the river cruise lines where we have the gaps. We’ve had more investment this year than last, but it’s how we consistently tell the story to the consumers. We’ve nailed the shop element, with posters and messaging, but there’s so much more we could be doing to promote the sector to our customers. To enjoy more growth, we have to get more confidence to sell it and that in turn gets more consumers understanding the product.”
Andy Harmer, Clia UK & Ireland: “This is exactly what we are trying to do at Clia: finding a way to talk about these holiday types to give agents the confidence to talk about them to their customers.
“It’s not just about education. It’s also the relationship you have with your client so that you can introduce river and they trust that you’re offering something you know they will like.
“At the RiverView Conference in Vienna, more than 50% of attendees had never set foot on a river ship before, so it’s promising that agents want to learn about river.”
Nick Watts, Cruise.co.uk: “River cruise is very important to us. We need to offer variety, which is why we’ve continued marketing river. We stopped during the pandemic, but post-pandemic we’ve been very strategic about who we work with.
“We’re sending more consultants on training courses to make sure they are confident promoting river to their customers. We’ve been very much ocean-focused, but we need to have other options. Every consultant has the opportunity to sell it.”
Miles Morgan, Miles Morgan Travel: “We’re ahead of the game when it comes to river cruise. It’s been five or six years since we got into it and we even have a river cruising sub-brand.
“Initially we put a specialist in every shop who could sell it, but we’re way past that now as everyone in the company is a specialist in river cruise.
“It’s not just sold off the side of a desk; it’s integral to what we do. The average values are great and commission is great, which dovetails into our core market of retired, affluent people. We want to grow our overall base of clients by offering river cruises, but we also want to offer it to our loyal, existing base.
“You just need to have confidence to sell it, and if you’ve been on a river ship, you have confidence. We sell every river cruise line and, invariably, customers who try a river cruise will return because they love the concept.”
Hawke: “You soon get a sense for which customers belong on which ship. It helps to try and explain to agents and customers what ocean line each river line is most similar too. I would say Avalon is like Celebrity, based on the decor and the relaxed luxury, for example. But the most helpful thing is getting agents on ships. This year is a great year to get agents on board [because most lines are still down on volume] so we can make use of space.”
Parton: “Getting agents to experience a river cruise for themselves is the best way to give them confidence to sell, which is why we have reintroduced our Suite Rewards programme, offering agents the chance to sail for just £665 for a week, which includes absolutely everything. Or, if an agent sells a group of 16 people, they get a place for free, which they can take, pass the saving on to their customers or host the trips themselves, meaning they effectively travel and experience Avalon for free.”
Morgan: “I’ve been making videos of everything we’ve done on this trip and have been posting them on my social channels, which has stimulated a lot of interest from our customers. This has hardly taken any time but is so powerful. It’s marketing on a shoestring budget but it really works.”