Cunard is aiming to get more than 500 travel agents onto its ships in 2025, when it will be continuing its programme of fam trips and day visits.
Vice President of Global Marketing David Jones said it is also planning a larger programme of land-based experiences for agents, after hosting a cooking class in the New Forest for a small handful of retailers earlier this year.
“Agents are massively important for our business and they will continue to be,” he said. “We would like to get more agents on board next year, but also we would like to organise experiences for them on land, like the cooking class, so they can get more of a feel for Cunard than they’d get from just a show-around.”
David hailed the success of Cunard’s partnership with renowned chef Michel Roux Jnr, which will continue in 2025 when he will bring his renowned two-Michelin-starred restaurant Le Gavroche to guests on Queen Mary 2 and its newest ship Queen Anne on four sailings to the Norwegian Fjords.
During the four sailings, Michel will also be hosting cooking demonstrations and talks. The chef, who closed Le Gavroche in central London this summer, told Travel Gossip during a lunch for the travel trade in London: “Some guests on sailings this year told me they’d booked specifically for Le Gavroche at Sea experience, it really is as if you are in Mayfair.”
Cunard will also launch a new website and a new app next year, and it will have a new communications platform for agents, said David. It will also be focusing on agent training, having trained 3,500 agents this year when it launched Queen Anne, the fourth ship in its fleet.
One of the cruise line’s challenges is to accurately describe Cunard to new customers, said David, since its own research found people had different opinions of what it might be like onboard. “A big part of our marketing approach next year will be to help agents with their marketing of our brand,” he added.
