The UK sales director for CroisiEurope, John Fair, discusses what to expect from the line’s next foray into ocean cruising and why trade bookings have rocketed.

Why launch another ocean ship, La Belle des Océans?

It’s something we’ve always aspired to. The chance came up with the ex-Silversea ship, Silver Discoverer, and we decided to take it. It’s a small vessel – 60 suites, 120 passengers, so we’re not talking huge liners, but it’s a good foot in the ocean cruising market. We do have our coastal cruiser in Croatia, of course, La Belle de l’Adriatique.

What about itineraries for the new ship?

CroisiEurope is going to be doing nine rotations between Singapore and Phuket, starting in October and through to Christmas. Then we have a series of positional cruises early in 2020, including four around Corsica. She arrives in Canada for June 2020. It’s a very unusual product.

Why this ship?

It’s all-suite, which was an attraction. We’ll put our own CroisiEurope stamp on it – for the interiors there’ll be changes. It will be very much a CroisiEurope product. The response we’ve had is very positive and the ship can go into ports that others can’t. As a family-run business we were keen to expand [more ocean], following the success of the coastal cruiser.

Why such a varied range of destinations?

We want to keep it fresh; we couldn’t just run the same Mediterranean cruise for 20 weeks a year – it’s not that sort of ship or style. By keeping the itineraries varied we attract a very varied customer.

How will you stand out in ocean cruising?

I think it comes down to the experience on board, itineraries and size of the ship – as a package it will be very attractive. We know how to deliver a product and, in many ways, it will be a mix of our river cruise experience and new ocean aspects.

Could we see more ocean ships in the fleet?

If the new ship goes well, who knows? We’re very forward looking at CroisiEurope, not afraid to go out with a new product, to invest.

Will you be recruiting more UK staff?

That’s certainly the plan. We had a good year last year. This year, January was excellent, February and March not so good. But since April it has been strong. Almost at once after the Brexit deadline extension announcement, sales went up. If we carry on as it is we will see double-digit growth for this year.

Something very pleasing is our trade growth – we are 27 per cent up this year. For the first time it’s a higher percentage than direct. We’re starting to see the benefits of a UK trade presence.

Now we have more fam trips, more contracts with partners and so on. The more people we can show the product, the better. It’s a big part of what we want to do and we’re starting to see results. Would I like a bigger team? Yes, eventually. But let’s get the rest of this year over with first.

What did you make of the CLIA river passenger figures earlier this year?

It’s good to have growth. There aren’t many parts of the travel industry with that. I’m sure we’ll reach 250,000 passengers next year and we’ll keep growing from there as we’re nowhere near saturation point. It’s a very positive part of the industry.

Visit croisieurope.co.uk for more information.