OTA Cruise.co.uk has launched a new cruise booking website as it revealed data showing that 20% of its customers wanted to book online.
The “one-stop shop” Seascanner.co.uk site is set up for customers who want to book and manage their cruise entirely online.
The Seascanner brand was acquired by Cruise.co.uk in 2016 when German cruise OTA Kreuzfahrtberater.de was bought.
Tony Andrews, deputy managing director of Cruise.co.uk, said 96% of customers booking through the Seascanner brand have never booked through Cruise.co.uk.
A recent study of more than 1,500 holidaymakers carried out by Cruise.co.uk, prompted the cruise specialist to open the site to a limited audience earlier this year before launching it widely.
With bookings increasing by an average of 40% every month during the trial period, the site has now officially launched.
Andrews said: “Our study was clear that flexibility is key. The launch of our ‘one-stop shop’ website, Seascanner.co.uk, is testament to some customers seeking an increasingly independent approach to making bookings.
“We are seeing a lot of younger customers coming in and we’re seeing the average age of customers coming down. There’s a small but growing cohort of customers that want to serve themselves online. We’ve seen that they do not want to talk to anybody.
“We’ve always been proud of our customer service but with this new group we wanted to test and launch our Seascanner brand.”
He added: “Alternatively, on our main website, we can offer assistance from an expert every step of the way, or somewhere in between.”