Southampton Cruise Concierge launches recruitment drive

Southampton Cruise Concierge is launching a recruitment drive to at least triple its headcount in the next few years.

The homeworking agency, which was set up in 2014 and operates under The Midcounties Co-op Group Atol, currently has three agents and is targeting rapid expansion.

Founder and managing director Joanne Pearson said the agency had previously added one new recruit per year but she has ambitions to tap into new areas of travel to grow at a faster pace.

Pearson said: “I’d like to get to five agents by the end of this year, and then next year, I’d like to start working on getting more people.

“Within the next couple of years, I don’t really have a limit, but I’d like to get up to at least 10 and keep growing it.”

While the “bedrock” of the business is cruise, in line with Pearson’s previous roles including Cunard and Regent Seven Seas Cruises, she said that she wanted to tap into other areas of travel.

She explained: “We want to evolve and there are loads of areas we can go for, but our initial areas to lean in to more and gain more knowledge of are land-based holidays, river cruise, yacht style and maybe more luxury.”

The agency currently has rates with more than 200 suppliers so can already offer land-based holidays from tailor-made bucket list trips, including tours, rail journeys to safaris, to standard packages. 

Pearson added she was considering bringing in other business names to represent “different sidelines” to the company, such as Southampton Holiday Concierge and Southampton River Concierge.

She said she was looking for people who were looking for flexibility and could be new-to-travel, highlighting the main criteria she was looking for was “attitude to work hard and be proactive”.

Pearson said the agency’s “unique selling points” are the ability to offer one-to-one service with clients throughout the process, the option to specialise in different sectors and destinations and the mentoring provided to her team.

She added that agents employed by Southampton Cruise Concierge get more fam trip opportunities than those in bigger companies.