Not Just Travel has hired Bolsover Cruise Club agent Gemma Outram as cruise business development manager as the company looks to “more than triple” cruise sales over the next 12 months.
Speaking from the homeworking firm’s first seminar at sea on Norwegian Cruise Line’s latest vessel Norwegian Prima, co-founder Steve Witt said Outram, who was previously known as Poppy, is “the first of many very talented cruise professionals” that will be joining the team in the coming weeks.
Outram (pictured), who spent more than 12 years at Derbyshire-based Bolsover Cruise Club, is currently on Prima with nearly 200 travel consultants helping to coach and train them.
Witt said: “She is using her skills and experience to help others achieve similar results to her.
“Through coaching, training and sharing of skills, plus working with our marketing and product teams to help put together amazing opportunities for our travel consultants.”
Witt said Not Just Travel worked with the “very best” in its pursuit of becoming “the best cruise company in the UK”.
“We are very excited that she recognised this within Not Just Travel and wanted to join our team to achieve this goal,” he added.
Duncan Croucher has been recruited internally to lead NJT’s cruise business development team. Witt described Croucher as “a natural choice” for this role.
“Over the next few weeks we will be announcing more top talent joining our cruise team, but due to them working notice periods we are not allowed to reveal names yet,” Witt added.
On the company’s annual cruise sales target, Witt said: “Our objective is to more than triple our cruise sales over the year.”
He outlined how upcoming ship launches had prompted the company to “extra focus” on growing sales.
Co-founder Paul Harrison said “many” of the travel consultants on Prima have “never been on a cruise before”.
Looking ahead to 2024, he said: “We’re really tackling it from all angles over a 15-month period.” Harrison also added Not Just Travel had forged “a closer alliance” with 15 cruise lines across the river, ocean and expedition sectors.
“We all know cruise is a growing sector – it’s going to be massive,” said Harrison, who said sales growth had increased by 1,000% over the past year with “some” cruise lines.
Harrison said Not Just Travel would offer at least one seminar sailing each year. “We’ve got 200 travel consultants here that is a big trip,” he said.
“This is a not fam trip, though, but a proper seminar at sea. It’s a real coup to start with this.”
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