Ambassador Cruise Line chief executive Christian Verhounig has called for a joint marketing campaign from the cruise industry to “combat misconceptions”.
“Today there is a cruise for everybody and that is a beautiful thing,” he told Travel Weekly during the Advantage Latitude Conference, on board the line’s Ambience ship.
“You have ships from 50 to 6,000 guests, you have a full range from budget to top luxury, and I don’t think that we are doing enough as an industry to get this message out to the trade, and ultimately, to the guests.”
He said it was “vital” that Ambassador, as well as other lines, maintained strong engagement with the trade.
“We have to work together to make sure that the new-to-cruise understands the value cruise brings and that there is a cruise for everybody,” he said.
“It is an investment into all our joint future, because we know that 80% of anybody who goes on a cruise returns to a cruise again. They may not necessarily go with the same ship, or with the same company, but they’re coming back on cruise again, so every guest we bring into the industry is a long-term guest for us.”
Ambassador joined Clia this year as a member which Verhounig said was down to building up the business over the last three years and now “having time” to become “a very active member”.
Combating misconceptions about cruise was raised several times during the conference, including on a panel with senior leaders from the industry including Princess Cruises UK & Europe vice-president Eithne Williamson, Ocean Cruises UK & Ireland sales director Louise Craddock and AmaWaterways UK managing director Jamie Loizou.
Williamson spoke about the need to “find new ways to communicate” and to open up to new partners to reach new audiences, citing Princess’s Love Line premium spirits as an example.
Both Williamson and Craddock pointed to growing wellness and fitness opportunities on board many cruise ships, while Loizou said he was “obsessed” about “how we can widen the net” as there was “a huge amount of untapped opportunity”.
‘Ambassador will not be just a two-ship operation’
Verhounig also revealed ambitions to grow the line, which launched in 2021 and now has two mid-sized ships Ambition and Ambience operating from eight regional ports across the UK.
Ambassador experienced a record sales day with its launch of its 2026-27 programme a few weeks ago, with an 88% uplift in trade sales year on year and 55% of bookings coming from repeat guests.
He told Travel Weekly: “I was very clear from the start of Ambassador that this is not a one-ship operation. Then I made it clear, it is not a two-ship operation. We have been fast as we are now running occupancy rates beyond 90% which is where we want to be at this stage.
“We are now on the outlook for future growth, both in tonnage and potentially even departure ports and, of course, destinations.”
As a whole, the UK and US cruise industries can “double penetration” of the holiday markets “with no issue” from 2% and 3.6% respectively “quite soon”, he added, with the only limit being capacity.
He said: “Every curve and statistic we’re looking at shows the natural growth is outgrowing our potential capacity over the next couple of years because it takes time to build the ship. It is now about making sure we control the next step and get this collaboration together because we’re not competing against each other.”
Verhounig stressed that Ambassador’s competition was not another cruise line but a land-based holiday.
He also said in his opening presentation that the cost-of-living crisis and other factors had led to “many guests” deciding to “maybe step down from luxury to affordable quality”, because a cruise holiday, or a holiday overall “is not a luxury, but a necessity” for them.
‘Sustainability is more than the environment’
Sustainability needs to touch “every part” of a ship’s operation, Verhounig said in his opening presentation to the conference, where he shared how Ambassador had made changes to its air quality and fuel use, water and waste management systems, and how it prioritises dealing with its workforce and destination partners.
He said: “It’s very important for agents to educate themselves around the topic of sustainability because there are a lot of misconceptions out there.
“I wanted to showcase today that we are 1% of the shipping industry and we are only 2% of the tourism industry overall, but we are the one part which is spending the most and which has a very clear path to net zero [by 2050], and we are also in any area of operation extremely strictly controlled, observed and regulated, so there are no black sheep in this industry.”
He maintained the cruise industry was “leading in many aspects” like the amount spent on testing, science and communication but social and governance elements of ESG were “often forgotten and neglected”.
Sustainability should also focus on treatment of destinations and cruise line employees, Verhounig stressed.
He told Travel Weekly: “When people talk about sustainability or ESG [environmental, social and governance] today, the E is always the big topic in the industry, but the S and the G is equally important, because especially S has to do with how do we treat the community, and how do we work with the community, where we are using our destinations and how we treat our own employees.”
He said the cruise industry “values and knows that we have to look after destinations”.
Verhounig added: “If we don’t look after the destinations we go to, we don’t have a place to go to. The beauty is we have assets that are movable, and if there are geopolitical issues, we can move somewhere, but we cannot change the destination.
“It is in our foremost interest to look after them, to coordinate with the community, to talk with them, and to find solutions that make travel to those destinations.”
He also said “99% of our product is the crew”, and that the cruise industry was already “leading” on many measurements of diversity, equality and inclusion.