The Travel Village Group has launched a river cruise academy programme in a bid to boost business owners’ sales.
Amanda Taylor, Travel Village Group business development manager, and Richard Cross, group commercial manager, developed the idea after Clia’s RiverView Conference in Amsterdam this year.
Cross said: “Amanda and I saw an opportunity to help our independent business owners grow their river cruise business by devising the first-ever river cruise academy.
“The programme sees hands-on experience with fam trips plus classroom learning to help understand the river cruise product. We are grateful to all our supplier partners for their input and support and are excited to watch our business grow and develop further.”
The launch event was hosted at Emerald & Scenic Cruises head office in Piccadilly, Manchester, and followed by four training sessions with Wendi Hardy from Emerald & Scenic Cruises, Dawn Quinn Uniworld, Robin Griffiths from APT and Joanne Smithies from AmaWaterways.
Smithies, who is a business development manager at AmaWaterways, said: “We’re delighted to support such a great initiative with The Travel Village Group.
“Having the opportunity to educate the river cruise academy members in such depth about the AmaWaterways product is so valuable.
“It was a really engaging afternoon, and the appetite and interest from the academy members to really grasp river and accelerate their sales is huge. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the programme.”
All nine business owners from the group’s Holiday Village division attended the launch and have already signed up to the scheme earlier this year to grow their knowledge and business in river cruise.
Representatives from those companies at the event were: Maria Hedley, Heather Tarrant, Chrisi Forbes, Jacqueline Davis, Joanna Parkin, Jodie-Lianne Tompkins, Lynne Page, Emma Andrews and Kirsty Van Wyk.
The academy will be a six-month programme including in-person and virtual training events, two fam trips onboard a river cruise and a graduation event at Clia RiverView 2025 in Budapest.
Those in the programme will also be able to host their own river cruise event in that time.
The Travel Village Group plans to launch further training academies across other aspects of leisure travel in the future.