Celestyal unveils Celestyal Travel package holidays brand

Celestyal Cruises is now selling packaged cruise holidays under the new Celestyal Travel brand, headed by the cruise line’s business development vice-president Janet Parton.

 

News of the package offering was announced on Thursday evening (July 10) at the Travel Weekly Agent Achievement Awards (AAAs) with Celestyal as headline sponsor.

 

The cruise line has also opened a UK office in Guildford and a UK contact centre for agents.

 

Lee Haslett, Celestyal Cruises’ chief commercial officer, told a Travel Weekly webcast that Parton is now also managing director of Celestyal Travel.

 

He continued: “We have launched a fully packaged travel product in partnership with Hays Travel – joining the Hays Travel Independence Group – and that means that we can provide a full package product for our travel agent partners.”

 

He said the packages include flights, hotels and shore experiences for the cruise line’s itineraries around the Greek islands and Gulf region.

 

“It is absolutely a response to agent feedback…and we’ll add more and more product to that.”

 

He said the opening of a UK contact centre for agents was also in response to agents.

 

There are five staff members in the contact centre, who have been trained and have visited the cruise line’s two vessels: Celestyal Discovery and Celestyal Journey.

 

“[The UK] is the first market that we’re having a dedicated contact centre,” he said, noting there is a contact centre in Piraeus, Greece, and an outsourced contact centre in North America.

 

“This really is our continued commitment to this market…continued commitment to travel agents as well. They told us they wanted to speak to someone in the UK,” he said.

 

“We expect continued growth. If you look at the growth numbers in the UK, even without this product, we are growing at a really rapid rate.”

 

He explained that Parton now has “two hats”, working for the core cruise line as well as the new Celestyal Travel business.

 

“We work with a number of tour operators and travel agents that take that cruise-only fare, and they’ll package that themselves – and then we have the travel business, which is designed for our agents that want to take a travel product,” he explained.

 

Furthermore, a dedicated campaign for agents will launch in September, which he described as “the cherry on the top” after all the work that has been done with the brand and the launch of Celestyal Travel.