The Interview


Nirmal Saverimuttu and SJ Walker, Virgin Voyages


The adult-only line’s chief executive and UK sales chief explain why 2024 was an ‘inflection point’ and eye future growth. Ella Sagar reports


I 10


n the 40 months since its Covid-delayed inaugural sailing in September 2021, Virgin Voyages has established


its adult-only cruise offering in the UK trade. As it sponsors this cruise themed


edition of Travel Weekly, chief executive Nirmal Saverimuttu and UK sales director SJ Walker discuss why they believe it got the formula right in 2024 and what comes next for the line.


On . . . confidence Saverimuttu: There is tremendous


momentum in the cruise industry right now. Last year was a real banner year for us. Our ships were full, revenues were up 60% and Black Friday was four times bigger than the year before, with 70% of those being new-to-brand bookings. Everything is looking really positive. It was an inflection point


where we put the brand on the map and people really started to understand the product. It got to the point where all agents knew that if anyone was


23 JANUARY 2025


travelling without kids, they should suggest Virgin Voyages. That was something we had been working hard at making sure people understood. If I had to think of one word to


sum up last year for us, it would be ‘confidence’ – most importantly, confidence with advisors who know they can trust us as a brand. It’s been really important for us to build that confidence with the UK trade and to continue building on it.


On . . . investment Saverimuttu: There is a trend


in travel to cut back and reduce quality, but we always feel the way to boost profit margins is to invest and increase quality. That will be a big theme for


us, to ensure we can continue to offer more value for money, rather than looking at taking things out. We need to keep investing to


accelerate our innovation pipeline because of our high repeat rate. Across the ships we get up to 40-50% [of passengers] rebooking, and across the brand we are at a repeat rate of about 30%-plus within any


given month, which is phenomenal. We hope to get that number


closer to 40-50% by the end of this year or early next year. We have to refresh our product


across our fleet every two to three years, from deployment to menus, restaurants and entertainment, as opposed to every four to five years, because our Sailors [passengers] crave something new every time. This year and next, there will be


a lot of refreshments to dining and entertainment, including our new restaurant concept Lucky Lotus, which is on Scarlet Lady, being rolled out to our other ships. We’ve received a lot of requests


for more live music and comedy that is more accessible, so we


will be putting that in too. We’re also investing in


technology and service-related issues, such as a beta version of our customer app in the first quarter, with a fully developed version to follow soon after.


On . . . the UK trade Walker: We cannot thank our First


Mates [agents] enough, because we had a sensational year in 2024. December exceeded all of


our expectations, and January is continuing on a very, very strong growth trajectory. Our previous investment in ship


visits has paid off in dividends, so we will be doing more of them in Portsmouth this year, as well as our


If I had to think of one word to sum up


last year for us, it would be ‘confidence’ – most importantly, confidence with advisors who know they can trust us as a brand


travelweekly.co.uk


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