Princess unveils new sales team

Princess Cruises UK has put a new sales operations team in place, which will be responsible for activities including online training, online and offline campaigns events and communications.

The team will be led by Victoria Snelgar, formerly sales communication and events executive at Princess Cruises.

She will be supported by Matt Lebbern, who will move over from his role as a Princess Cruises’ reservations team leader.

In addition, Andrea Jones has been promoted to senior regional business manager. Previously regional business manager, she will now support sales manager Sarah-Jane Walker in leading the five-strong Princess Academy frontline agent team.

The cruise line said it had broken its agent guest target for 2016, five months ahead of schedule.

It claims it will become the first UK cruise line to launch a live ‘web chat’ facility for agents, which is currently on trial. The facility is already used in the Princess Cruises Australia office and accounts for one in three enquiries.

Princess’ sales information portal, www.onesourcecruises.com, has also been expanded. A comprehensive destinations section is now available, which includes individual guides on the 360 locations Princess calls at, the ships that travel there and a list of shore excursions.

The portal include information and an entry form for Princess’ #MakeMeMajestic competition, which will give 200 agents a four-night Mediterranean cruise on the line’s newest ship, Majestic Princess, when she launches in 2017. To win, agents must book guests on a 2017 fly-Europe cruise with Princess by January 28.

Tony Roberts, vice president of Princess Cruises UK, said: "We are witnessing unprecedented agent demand at present so it’s vital we invest both in our team and toolkit. This year we enjoyed our best ever Wave period and the momentum has continued apace: our 2016 guest target has already been broken while we have comfortably surpassed projected sales for our key UK homeport ship, Emerald Princess.

"This is great news for Princess but it’s essential we don’t rest on our laurels. Our new sales operations team and expanded One Source will help us ensure we remain easy to do business with.

"We’ve already established a successful blueprint for ensuring our teams are focussed on being agent-centric, for example our UK-based contact centre has shared objectives with our sales team to deliver first-rate agent support, so we know our operations team will be able to offer the same level of service and delivery.

"I want to thank agents for the amazing support they continue to give us and am confident our added support will prove beneficial to them."