How to grow a cruise agency from the ground up
Launching a new business can be a terrifying prospect, unless you’re one of these five entrepreneurs, of course. Will Payne meets the founders who’ve been and done it to discover how they built a fledgling cruise agency from the ground up
Working for yourself comes with many perks, from being your own boss to taking the lion’s share of any financial rewards that may come your way. It does, however, come with one big caveat: if it fails, you risk losing everything.
An array of cruise agencies have grown from a seed of an idea into record-breaking enterprises. The fact that so many of these ventures are flourishing – despite soaring interest rates, a rampant cost of living crises and the after-effects of a global pandemic – is testament to the health of the cruise sector in 2024.
To help those of you with aspirations of launching a business of your own, we decided to speak to five cruise entrepreneurs to find out what it takes to launch and lead a high-performing enterprise, asking them to share their stories and the lessons they learned along the way.
Robert O’Grady, The Cruise Room
“Opening our own store has long been an ambition of me and my partner, Jonathan Howitt. However, it needed the huge changes we all experienced with the pandemic to give us the push to finally make it happen. We really didn’t want to look back in years to come and think ‘What if?’, so with Jonathan losing his travel position in Ireland, I put my health service management career on hold, and we set about putting The Cruise Room vision into reality.
“One of the biggest lessons I learnt from doing so is to have patience. We are operating in such a difficult world, and I’ve had to be patient with our development. I quickly found out that it was going to take three years from opening our doors to even begin to assess whether the business was viable.
“That’s hard when you want to see instant results from the endless hours and investment you put in. But the big unknown for us was how the world was going to evolve and whether the industry would bounce back from the pandemic.
“We’ve had to be dynamic in response to how it’s all unfolded in recent years. However, if you had told us three years ago that we’d be where we are now, we would have grabbed it, and we wouldn’t have quite believed it, either.
“We’ve experienced huge increases in guest numbers and sales along with multiple award nominations, including recently being shortlisted for three Wave Awards. The hard work has paid off.
“So, if you’re thinking of doing the same, just remember that starting a travel business is not something you can do on the side or occasionally; you must be incredibly passionate about it. Take some time to research first: speak to account managers, assess your neighbourhood and, most importantly, see what support you can get from a local enterprise hub about setting up a business.”
Dan Roche, Crui.se
“Crui.se isn’t my first rodeo so the ‘starting’ was pretty easy. But when you begin, you’re an unknown entity – no reviews, no proof of concept – so it’s difficult to get going. But once you do, it soon starts to snowball. Don’t get me wrong, there were still issues, like cashflow, for example.
“As we launched in July 2023, we were taking cruise bookings for summer 2024 and our marketing spend didn’t reap any rewards until at least February 2024. Because we’re part of the Hays Independence Group, we don’t get any commission until eight weeks before a customer travels, which is great practice, but initially it can be difficult if you’re creating a business that’s going to challenge an industry.
“I didn’t really have any expectations from Crui.se. I love the travel industry and I wanted to create a product that I was proud of and happy with. We have micro goals which are to generate one booking per day, every working day of 2024, which we’re ahead of.
“But the main thing for us is progression – genuinely helping customers, adding better content and functionality to the site, and giving the competition something to think about. And that is crucial to starting your own venture. Love what you do. It’s a massive cliché, but I genuinely look forward to working on Crui.se every day.
“Also, treat people well. Go above and beyond. I’m full of clichés, but it’s true. If you mess up or if there are any issues with flights or sailings then own it – customers will appreciate it.
“Furthermore, try and plan your next steps as much as possible. We’re a river cruise specialist. We could venture out into ocean, but we’ve still so much to do and learn about river. We took our first booking on 16 August 2023; as of 31 July 2024, we’ve done 208 bookings equalling £1.2 million in value. So, if you’re confident, take the leap!”
Ashley Hunt, Swindon Travel Hub
“Having only launched at the start of August, we are very much still learning. It’s an exciting journey, that’s for sure, with so many opportunities for growth. It’s important to be eager to learn – we’re looking forward to evolving with each step we take.
“There have, of course, been several unforeseen challenges. Our renovations were slightly delayed, which consequently pushed back our opening date, and the website design took longer than expected. But we didn’t let these setbacks dent our vision.
“We stayed focused on the future and we recognise we still have a lot of work to do to ensure the customer journey is seamless and enjoyable. At a top line level, we are where we thought we would be at this stage of our journey.
“We have just launched the store, and our focus for the next six weeks is to solidify our processes, establish clear ownerships, and build our team. However, none of this would have been possible without support from our consortium, Barrhead Travel.
“Make sure you do thorough research and ensure you have a good consortium that provides you with the necessary tools and the freedom to trade openly. This has led to enquiries and bookings performing higher than expected at this early stage, which is very encouraging.
“Now, our short-term goals are to improve the online experience for our customers, expand our distribution strategy both online and offline and work more closely with our cruise line partners. In the longer term, we will be exploring opportunities for additional retail stores, enhancing our online booking capabilities to offer a more seamless experience and build our brand to ensure long-term growth.”
Sefton Monk, My Kind of Cruise
“I am often asked, ‘Surely when you start your own business you can set your own hours and be your own boss?’ My response is that while you can set your own hours, those hours are 24/7, 365 days a year. To make your idea somewhat successful, you need to be prepared to work constantly.
“Additionally, you need incredibly thick skin, as people will give you their honest opinions, and 99 per cent of the time, they will say you are wrong or that they don’t understand your idea. It’s imperative you keep your spirits high and don’t be shy to ask for advice as much as possible.
“Also, don’t forget to conduct thorough research. It helped me understand my target audience, their needs, preferences and pain points. Gather customer feedback all the time – this is critical. Use it to improve your services and adapt your approach based on their suggestions and changing market trends. These of course can be tricky to navigate and predict.
“Having started My Kind of Cruise during the pandemic, I had no idea what life would be like when we returned to ‘normal’. The main difficulty arose when it took longer than expected for unrestricted cruising to return. While other travel startups were able to gain momentum quickly, we experienced some stop-and-start traction when it came to building. However, fast-forward a few years and we’re actually a bit further ahead than I expected.
“The very high traction rate we have seen for a while now has proven the market need for a dedicated cruise booking app. We are now under the Hays Travel umbrella and are working to relaunch our offering with the many partners that work with Hays, ensuring our cruises are ABTA-bonded.
“We are also very focused on building our audience so for now, we will continue with what we are doing, while releasing new features as often as possible to stay ahead of the curve. The USA is in our sights, so watch this space!”
Sam Ballard, Club Voyages
“Even though Club Voyages is my second company, it’s represented a totally different set of challenges to the first. While I was involved in the travel industry, I’d never sold travel before, so that was a real learning curve for me. My product knowledge was pretty good, but I soon discovered that I knew nothing about the actual mechanics and internal systems of travel, which, as a travel agent, are in fact rather important.
“The biggest challenge that I’ve found was saying no to people. As soon as we launched, we started bringing on homeworkers but now, in hindsight, a lot of those people simply weren’t right for us, and we probably weren’t right for them – but that’s okay, it’s all part of the learning process.
“I could probably have two or three times as many homeworkers as I do now, but it would be a very different looking company. We’ve grown sensibly and with the right people representing us. Now, we’re looking at stage two, which saw us move into a physical retail space in Leicester’s Clarendon Place at the start of September.
“And if you told me we would be in this place now when we launched, I would have laughed you out of the room. With nearly 20 homeworkers, bonded as a tour operator and having just opened our first shop, I didn’t see this coming in my wildest dreams.
“So, in light of all of this, make sure you know your brand and stay true to it. You’ll have many people telling you that this should change, or that won’t work. Listen to the right people, but don’t lose track of what your long-term goals are. After navigating choppy waters at the start of the venture, I recalibrated and stuck to my vision. Now we’re in a good position, but the market feels tough.
“June and July were relatively slow, but we still finished July 35 per cent up year-on-year. Looking ahead, we won’t take our eye off growing our homeworkers. That will continue to be a major part of our business, but it must be the right people. Retail is going to be interesting and I’m excited to see where that could lead. There’s something about being able to see a physical manifestation of your brand that is exciting. So if you’re on the fence – go for it.”
