Travelscene American Express is exploring the creation of a cruise club as management looks to stop the haemorrhaging of sales to Cruiseco.
Although the retailer has Travelscene Cruise Holidays in its stable, it is losing a significant amount of business to the cruise consortium. Approximately 50% of Cruiseco’s members are Travelscene Amex agents, creating a major headache for head office.
Travelscene Amex general manager Jacqui Timmins confirmed it was exploring how a cruise club within its network could compete with Cruiseco and keep bookings in-house.
“It is something we are looking at right now,” she said. “We are aware that cruise business goes to Cruiseco from our network and we are looking at how we can bring those sales back into Travelscene American Express.
“Our members do book through Travelscene Cruise Holidays, and sales are growing, but we do lose business to Cruiseco and we get no benefit from those bookings.” She denied the sales leakage was a bone of contention for management, preferring to describe it as “an opportunity”. She also declined to reveal the extent of cruise business it was losing but admitted it was “sizeable”.
“We are reviewing what we can do and looking at why members want to be part Cruiseco,” she said. “We need to have a value proposition that will bring those sales back to the network.”
A launch of a cruise club is expected this year and is likely to include dedicated product and agent training, Timmins said.
She refused to be drawn on whether membership of a future Travelscene Amex cruise club would require agents to leave Cruiseco. But it is thought untenable for agents to be members of two network’s vying for the same business.
