Inspire Group targets cruise growth with major tech and management investment

The Inspire Group has announced a major investment in its cruise business as part of a strategic push to significantly increase its market share.

Speaking at the company’s ‘Resilience & Vision’ conference in Manchester last week, chief executive Lisa Henning told its 70-strong team of homeworkers that cruise will carry an even greater strategic focus going forward.

Every member of the Inspire Travel Agency (ITA) network has been tasked with growing cruise to 10% of their overall business.

Henning said: “This conference is all about resilience and vision, and the cruise industry epitomises both. As a sector, cruise has enormous growth potential, and with the cruise lines delivering continual innovation and launching new ships all the time, it presents a golden opportunity for our homeworkers, as well as a real opportunity for cruise suppliers to engage more closely with us.”

To support the expansion, Inspire has invested substantially over the past 12 months in a new Cruise Resource Centre.

The platform gives homeworkers instant access to itineraries, individual ship details, and live pricing across all cabin types for 92 cruise operators.

Henning added that the tool is designed to deepen product knowledge, build confidence and drive booking growth.

The investment, combined with an increased Atol licence, helped the group achieve record-breaking dynamic packaging sales during the first quarter of 2026, delivering a higher average booking value and increased earnings for homeworkers.

As part of the strategy, Chris Meddows will take on an expanded role as product manager. He will take responsibility for driving the cruise business and growing its dynamic packaging programme across the ocean, river and expedition sectors.

Meddows has developed a programme of initiatives to accelerate growth, including dedicated cruise months, focused activity weeks with supplier partners, training schemes and booking incentives.