Boosting brand awareness and new-to-cruise focus for Carnival UK brands

P&O Cruises, Seabourn, Holland America Line and Princess Cruises have outlined their priorities for 2026, which include targeting new-to-brand customers.

Sales executive said growing brand awareness would also be a core focus.

P&O Cruises associate vice-president of sales and distribution Ruth Venn said the brand would continue to concentrate on bringing in more new-to-brand customers.

Venn said: “Our focus over the last few years has been on newcomers because of our Excel Class ships.

“We have got more newcomers who have been sailing with us, and we can look at whether they have come from other brands within the Carnival umbrella and we can look at where they might move on to.

“The good thing with cruise is that it has got the highest repeat rate, so we know that if all of our brands are helping to attract new-to-cruise, hopefully those people stay and have a positive experience.”

She added focusing on its family offering would be “an ongoing trend” for the line, pointing to the introduction of five-berth cabins in December and family-friendly sailings on selected dates on Arcadia and Aurora.

“That is very much a multi-generational [strategy] play,” she said. “We do see that that is going to be something that appeals to our past guests but then are able to bring their children or grandchildren later on.”

Holland America Line’s associate vice-president of sales and marketing for the UK and Ireland Karen Farndell said getting agents on board in Dover would be “a big priority this year” to boost brand awareness in the UK.

She added fam trips to Alaska would be “a key focus” for the line to give agents the chance to “immerse themselves” in the destination and ship product.

“Alaska is our biggest product we sell in the UK market,” she said, adding next year would be “a big deal” being the line’s 80^th anniversary of operations in the area.

Cunard associate vice-president of EMEA sales Iain Baillie said 2027 voyages would be “a big focus”, as would rolling out “marketing summits” to help trade marketers.

He urged agents to “get behind” Cunard’s “most ambitious year for UK deployment”, which will see a 54% year-on-year increase in departures from Southampton.

Baillie added: “We have really got to source up as we will have Queen Anne, Queen Victoria and Queen Mary doing round-trip UK deployment, which has not happened since 2018.”

He added that he “felt encouraged” this deployment move would bring more first-timers to the brand, particularly with the newest ship in the fleet Queen Anne sailing out of Southampton.

Baillie said Cunard would also roll out “marketing summits” to help educate trade marketers about “the direction of the brand” and new campaigns.

Princess Cruises sales director for the UK and Europe Yasmin McKechnie acknowledged there was still “a job to do with brand awareness in the UK” and said the line would be “shifting” its focus to fly-cruise.

She said the line, with new national training manager Mike Pack, would be “getting out to as many agents as we can”, in addition to featuring in a Channel 4 TV series later this year.

“Hopefully by the end of the year, we’ll have more guests interested in the brand and that [business] will come into travel agents, and we’ll be able to increase agent confidence,” she said.

McKechnie said the UK team’s internal catchphrase had “shifted” from “the future if fly” to “focus is fly” as they were making strides to increase fly-cruise deployment with Sphere Class ships Sun and Star Princess joining the fleet.

“We have had to really increase our fly proposition,” she said. “We are going to see a shift [this year], and we are already seeing those trades come to fruition.

“We’ve seen it in our numbers in wave, and we think there’s even more we can do, so fly will continue to be our focus.”

Seabourn UK and EMEA sales director Tom Andrews said there was an opportunity for “real growth” in the expedition sector, where “myth-busting” was needed to help agents sell luxury.

“We need to do a lot of myth-busting around what expedition is when it comes to Seabourn, and that is where we will be looking to grow our focus,” he said.

He stressed there were “still opportunities” in the ocean fleet, particularly for UK-based agents, with Seabourn Encore returning to the Mediterranean next year.

Andrews added the UK sales team had recently been expanded with a view to “grow market share”.

He said: “Whilst we do have the Sojourn leaving the fleet, I think that is representative of the opportunity for us to have more market share from the UK market.”