NEWS ROUND-UP
IN THE PICTURE: QM2 hosts first movie premiere on board
Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 hosted a string of famous faces at the first Hollywood premiere on board a passenger ship. Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Rebecca Ferguson and Zendaya attended the world premiere of The Greatest Showman last week on the ship in New York. Queen Mary 2’s departure to Southampton was delayed until after midnight so the premiere could take place. Carnival Corporation chief executive and president Arnold Donald (second left) is pictured with the cast of the film. Also in attendance was Cunard competition winner Georgia Purslow (inset) of Midcounties Co-operative Travel, Walsall, and her partner Marco Milani.
Royal aims to fill two new trade roles by end of year
Harry Kemble
harry.kemble@
travelweekly.co.uk
Royal Caribbean International is aiming to fill two new key trade roles in its sales team before the end of the year as part of a strategic refocus.
Amanda Darrington, the line’s sales director for the UK and Ireland, is overseeing the two appointments, covering the north and south of the country. Last month head of retail Sarah
Weetman mutually agreed to leave Royal Caribbean. Weetman has not taken a position elsewhere and Darrington told Travel Weekly there was “no animosity with her departure” and that it was due to a change of company strategy. The job description says the
recruits for the two head of retail roles “will own the relationship” with key independent retailers and consortia head offices, and will spend about 50% of their time on the road. The heads of retail will lead
DARRINGTON: Wants to fill the trade sales team roles quickly
a team of four regional sales managers, with each team managing more than 1,000 retail outlets. The closing date for applications was last Friday. Darrington also gave an update on AirWaves, Royal’s new booking platform, which encompasses flights, transfers and hotels, and was introduced to agent partners in November. She said: “We have trained
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travelweekly.co.uk 14 December 2017
“It takes less than 10 seconds to package a cruise with flights, a hotel and transfers [on AirWaves]”
more than 7,000 agents across the UK and Ireland and we have had 17,000 searches for holidays since we rolled it out on November 23. “It is all about packaging a
cruise. It takes less than 10 seconds with a cruise, flights, a hotel and transfers.” Following the recent launch
of rival line P&O Cruises’ Shine Rewards Club, Darrington insisted Royal Caribbean’s My Club Rewards was “market-leading”. Nearly 4,000 travel agents
signed up to Shine in the first week after its launch in November. Darrington said: “There is no
stopping My Club Rewards. “We have had new applications
every day since it launched and it is still growing.”
Cunard hires Anslow as sales director to head new division
Cunard has appointed former Monarch Holidays sales director Gary Anslow to head its new commercial division. Anslow starts his role as UK
sales director in early January. Cunard announced it was
creating its own dedicated sales team in November after splitting from sister line P&O Cruises. Anslow is former sales
director for Cosmos where he also oversaw the Avro, Somewhere2stay and Avalon Waterways brands. David Rousham, UK sales vice-
president at Carnival UK, said: “We are delighted to welcome Gary to the team. His wealth of travel experience and strong leadership qualities are going to be invaluable as we build our sales team. “Next year is going to be an
exciting one for Cunard as we focus on our ambitious plans for the future of Cunard globally.” Cunard’s new sales team was
set up to establish relationships “directly with the right agents”. Rousham previously told
Travel Weekly: “We feel the way to do that is with our own dedicated team.”
COMMENT: “These days, the over-60s are more likely to be at Glastonbury, or at A&E nursing a Zumba injury” Debbie Marshall, page 36
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