Light Blue Travel has appointed Russell Fleming as reservations manager.

Fleming will manage the sales and reservations team, as well as streamlining processes and improving efficiencies to maximise revenue.

He joins the Cambridge-based company from HF Holidays, where he was customer success manager and prior to that was reservations manager at Freedom Destinations.

Fleming – who will report to Light Blue Travel commercial director UK & Europe Michelle Daniels – will also focus on sales training programmes and developing the company’s CRM/booking system.

Light Blue acts as the UK and Europe representative for American Queen Voyages, with its river, ocean and expedition vessels, and is also GSA for German operator Nicko Cruises.

Light Blue Travel hails ‘great addition’

Daniels said: “Russell is a great addition to our team and brings 20-years’ experience in managing reservation teams and implementing industry best practice to optimise performance and customer satisfaction.”

Fleming added: “I am pleased to be joining the growing Light Blue Travel team in a role that will allow me to develop operational strategies, which I hope will contribute to the future success and growth of the company.”

Writing for Cruise Trade News, Daniels recently discussed plans to grow UK brand awareness for Nicko Cruises.

Part of this is a new travel agent selling guide, which is the “start of a package of tools for our agent partners to help make selling Nicko Cruises as simple as possible”, Daniels added.