Cruise Boutique to launch this week

TRAVEL Associates is set to roll out its Cruise Boutique brand through its partners tomorrow and via clients on Thu.

In an effort to return a dedicated cruise brand to Travel Associates and Flight Centre Travel Group’s (FCTG) offerings, FCTG General Manager of Premium Leisure Brands, Danielle Galloway, told Cruise Weekly exclusively the organisation was eager to undertake the launch following the ditching of Cruiseabout back in 2018 ( CW 22 Feb 2018).

“The Cruiseabout brand was a strong one within the market and we definitely saw an immediate impact in terms of a decline in cruise sales and I think that’s evident that cruise customers want to walk into that specialised cruise business,” Galloway said.

“The forecast going into the new year is that levels will be back up to 2017 levels... we believe it’s a perfect opportunity for us to really focus in on this growth strategy under Travel Associates.”

“Our suppliers loved Cruiseabout and they’re incredibly excited about the launch of the Cruise Boutique... they’re excited about the delivery of a dedicated product.”

Galloway also identified how Flight Centre would target the important cruise sector through Cruise Boutique.

“We’ve spent a good amount of time on our brand journey with our clients Travel Associates over the next one to five years and really mapped out our core and transformational strategies that will differentiate us in the market.

“We have a number of strategies to acquire more cruise customers... part of the strategy was to move forward with a smaller but stronger network of brands across [FCTG].”