Virgin Voyages has promised to address “pain points” in its reservations system to make life easier for UK and Irish agents.
Speaking at a business update session with the trade on board Resilient Lady (pictured), global training manager Luke Day said: “The biggest pain point for us is add-ons.
“We’re going to be including back in the ability to pay by credit card.
“We’re also going to be automating tour operator bookings and we’re going to be introducing self-cancellation, so agents can come into the system and cancel themselves.
“We are systemising the whole thing and this will be a welcome relief for our manual processing team.”
More: Virgin Voyages sees triple-digit growth in UK over past year
Sales manager Mark Lowman added: “You completed surveys about what would make your lives easier and your feedback is going into a plan into the way our operation operates.”
Day said the changes would be in place “towards the end of the year”.
Chief executive Nirmal Saverimuttu also said that Virgin founder, Sir Richard Branson, is planning to reveal news about the cruise line’s relationship with the Virgin Red loyalty scheme.
“We have been too disparate across the Virgin companies. Virgin Red is the right way to connect everybody and is much needed,” he said.
“Virgin Red is the heart of that. It’s been 50 years since the Virgin Group began and we know that people love to be able to take points across the group.
“We need to work out a better way to connect all the businesses. It’s hard in practice but for sailors [passengers], it makes sense to have our red thread running across the group and use points earned across all the different businesses.”
Their comments came as the cruise line hosted a Celebration Voyage on Resilient Lady, with Saverimuttu, founder Sir Richard Branson, 80s pop star Boy George, former Virgin Atlantic chief executive Steve Ridgway and Virgin Galactic astronauts.