Riviera Travel is planning to double its trade revenue by 2027, according to its UK trading head.
Stuart Milan, trading director at Riviera Travel, told Travel Weekly: “In terms of where I think trade can get to, it will easily get to over £100 million-worth of revenue in two years.”
In 2019, the trade made up about 15% of the company’s overall business, Milan revealed, and in 2024 this jumped to 27%.
Earlier this year the tour operator and river cruise line reported its trade sales at that point for the wave period were up 50% on the previous year, which it attributed to greater engagement with agents and strengthening its trade team.
The operator also pledged to double its passengers to 200,000 per year by 2030.
Trade is “the fastest growing part of the business” this year, Milan confirmed, with much that due to how the business has been structured.
Riviera Travel restructured its trade sales team earlier this year, introducing newly created roles of national sales manager for retail and online travel agencies (OTA), and the equivalent for homeworkers.
Milan called homeworkers “a huge opportunity” and “a still relatively untapped source of bookings”.
He added: “In my opinion, we’re only just at the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot of work that we can do there to significantly grow that area of the business, whilst not losing focus on the retail and OTA aspect.”
Milan said that he wanted to get the team “started running more effectively”, so that it can be expanded in future.
River cruise has also “really pushed” a 25% growth in 2024 total revenue so far, he added, with revenue for that section up 40% based on departures in 2024 and 2025.
Looking ahead to 2025, river cruise passengers and revenue are up 40% as well, and 2026 is performing strongly with pre-registration and early sales.
Milan stressed that there was “a massive education piece” needed for the trade to learn about river cruising and touring, and to associate Riviera Travel with both.
He added that there will be “various engagement mechanisms in place”, especially around peaks, incentives, training and a 2025 fam trip programme.
These include a new e-learning platform called Riviera Explora to help experienced sellers and those new to the brand.
It features the latest Riviera news and updates plus bite-sized training modules showcasing the operator’s itineraries across river, ocean cruise and escorted tour products.
Agents can complete the training programme in approximately four to five hours to become a certified Riviera Expert.
Those who complete every training module by December 31 will be in with a chance of winning a space on a Sri Lanka escorted tour fam trip in 2025 or a Blue Danube Cruise fam trip on new ship Riviera Radiance, also in 2025.
Milan also noted positive trends with solo travellers, themed cruises and long-haul destinations.
“The solos market has been huge throughout 2024. So much so, we are now doing 31 solo-only cruises in 2026, whereas in 2023 we probably had about six so it’s growing significantly over this year and next year,” he said.
He observed that a lot of solo travellers were married but passengers had decided to either go on holiday with friends or on their own as individual explorers.
He explained: “The rise of individual travel with the younger demographics is up, but even now with our demographic of 55-plus they seem to be getting more comfortable with solo travel, especially when there’s a tour manager or cruise director.”
On top of expanding its solo-only cruises, Riviera Travel is also increasing the number of its themed cruises in 2025 and 2026, such as history cruises on the Douro.
This links to “a change in mindset” for travellers to focus more on the experience, and an indication of the shifting demographic of river cruising, Milan said.
“I think it is changing,” he explained. “Customers are getting more adventurous when it comes to river cruise and are happy to explore destinations further afield.”
That is a contributing factor to Riviera Travel putting additional capacity onto the Mekong and the Nile, although Europe is “still the core part of the business” and “will be for some time” with two new ships on the programme, he said.
Milan concluded: “There’s plenty of scope for increased capacity on the rivers. Everyone talks about that as a potential pain point, but actually, I don’t believe it is.
“There are growth aspects in there, so from an operational perspective, I think there’s plenty of opportunity. I don’t think there are too many barriers.
“We’re just going to try and keep going after it, and not slow down over the next two to three years.”