Agents urged to sail with Virgin Voyages while capacity available

Agents have been urged to travel with Virgin Voyages and experience its product while there is still capacity, as the line’s ships are expected to fill up next year.

Speaking in a webcast with Travel Weekly, sales director SJ Walker hailed the success of the line’s programme to host agents – which it calls First Mates –  saying 25% of agents registered with the brand sailed in summer 2023. She also encouraged members of the trade who have not yet sailed to secure a cabin before capacity runs out.

She explained the line has been able to welcome so many agents on board because its ships have not been at full capacity, which she put down to the brand launching three ships in three years – quicker than it had planned.

Walker said: “We launched three new cruise ships quite close together and the reality is that was never the plan.

“The plan was to launch four new cruise ships over a fair amount of time, allowing us to build our database and build that level of retention.

“The reality is we launched Scarlet Lady in 2021, Valiant Lady in 2022 and Resilient Lady in 2023, and the database wasn’t quite there to fill all of the ships to the full level of capacity, so while there is a margin of space there, let’s use it, let’s invest it, because we know that once our First Mates have been on board they’re going to come back.”

She added: “We are proud to be in a position to be able to invest our cabins with our First Mates.

“I think when we look forward to next year, we won’t be in the same position where we have that level of capacity, so agents should get on now.”

Virgin Voyages last week confirmed Resilient Lady will sail from Portsmouth on voyages ranging from four to six nights beginning in August 2024, which Walker predicted will be a popular choice for agents. The itineraries went on sale on Monday.

“I think we’re going to have a lot of agent friends who will be joining us on some of those shorter Portsmouth sailings next year,” she said.

More: Virgin Voyages unveils $550m cash injection and new CEO