Bolsover Cruise Club outlines digital strategy amid plans to ‘take market share’

Bolsover Cruise Club’s new leadership team has outlined an ambition to leverage social media and technology to “take market share” and target younger customers.

Katie Wilson, the specialist’s new director and daughter of managing director Michael Wilson, said she wanted to “create the cruise agency of the future” targeting “digital natives”.

Wilson said: “Now is the time to do this as cruise has got cool [on social media], so why hasn’t the travel agent?”

As part of the changes, Francesca Hurst has been promoted to head of sales and operations, while Shelley Bayne has been brought in from Sky as head of product to “shake things up”.

Hurst said: “We want people to be scared – we want to take market share.”

Wilson added she was “ready to shout” about the changes across the business, which include hiring across marketing, product and social media over the last year to take the total headcount to 157 people – including a full-time influencer and videographer.

The company’s Chesterfield office has also been “revamped” and the business has built two studios for filming social media content.

The new digital focus marks a significant evolution for the Derbyshire-based business, which has operated as a traditional family-run independent since the 1960s. 

Two standalone brands will now be developed: Odysia, a social media-first agency that soft-launched in March, and Luxury Journeys, a luxury specialist coming in September.

Wilson said the aim was to bring in new customers, adding: “I truly believe in the power of social media and technology to attract a new digitally minded customer who may not want to engage with traditional travel agency marketing.”

She said the team had built its own CRM and integrated AI to help “surface opportunities” with customers who had previously booked or engaged with agency marketing, such as offering reminders of when a client is overdue to book.

She stressed the evolution would not include offering land-only product, with cruise “always part of packages”, adding that success would be measured in higher repeat-booking rates and volumes, as well as a reduction in average customer age.