Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) is planning to bolster its regional sales team and increase its marketing spend for the UK market, its sales chiefs have said.
The line set out to grow its sales team a year ago and now has executives covering the Midlands, the south, London and the southeast and is recruiting for another in Scotland and the northeast.
Speaking on the inaugural sailing of Norwegian Aqua, NCL regional vice-president and head of UK & Ireland Gary Anslow said: “We know that if we talk to agents, walk through the doors and get time with homeworkers, we make a difference.
“We see a massive opportunity in Scotland and the northeast in particular.”
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He revealed NCL “tends to over-index” in the north and in Scotland as the majority of passengers in the region fly to their destination.
Anslow explained: “The majority of our business comes from getting people on planes and taking cruises from Barcelona or Rome, so if you are from Birmingham or anywhere south, there is an opportunity to sell from Southampton.
“What we tend to see though, if you are coming from the north and are going to take a flight down to Southampton, you might as well fly to Barcelona or similar.”
Anslow stressed there was “a much bigger opportunity” for agents to sell fly-cruise, as opposed to “the almost default setting” of ex-UK sailings.
He said: “People who travel and fly and spend more, they will enjoy that holiday more and they will spend more when they are there. They will come back, and they will book again.”
Meanwhile, Jason Krimmel, NCL vice-president and chief of international sales and marketing officer, said the line had been increasing its marketing investment, particularly in the UK market.
He said: “We are cognisant we need to put more dollars into marketing and we have been putting a heck of a lot more into it and have partnered with a new agency starting April 1 for all our media strategy to help us tell that message and direct more interest to agents.”
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Krimmel promised the line’s marketing “will always” include a call to action for the trade.
He said: “We remain an overwhelmingly dominant trade-driven organisation in Central Europe and in the UK and we are not looking to change that mix.
“Trade is two-thirds of our business in the UK and it is more than that when you look at seasonality when Europe comes into play.”
NCL has also invested in its Southampton-based call centre which Anslow boasted has an average response rate of 12 second from the last year.
Abby Hugglestone, who runs the direct contact centre EMEA, said on stage: “Having a UK call centre is a real USP for us. We are really focused on people excellence as a business and the people in the contact centre are the frontline for agents calling us.”
Hugglestone added that 14 members of the call centre were currently sailing on the fleet’s newest ship, Norwegian Aqua, and said: “The investment that NCL has put into the team to experience the product and the brand, really enhances their ability to talk to you and your teams.
“It’s an investment that I’m really proud of.”