“CORRECTING misconceptions” about Imagine Cruising will define much of the early work done by the package business’ newly appointed Director B2B Katrina McAlpine has said (CW 25 Aug).
The former Cunard Commercial Director recently announced her new role with Imagine, and has spent much of her first two months on the job face-to-face with travel advisors to ensure they understand what the business’ relatively new B2B proposition (CW 25 May) offers.
McAlpine told Cruise Weekly her goal is for Imagine to ultimately become “the number one trusted partner for travel advisors for package products”.
“There were a lot of misconceptions around the business…there’s certainly some areas where we want to make sure that we are building trust, and a lot of the discussions that I’ve been having with travel agents has been around putting the customer first,” she explained to CW.
“This is a big piece of what our BDMs are doing at the moment: going out and really asserting, ramping up our position in the market to communicate these values to our travel agent partners,” McAlpine added.
Some of these trust-building strategies include establishing a new trade-specific booking platform to ensure advisors and their clients are not retargeted; and offering periods of exclusivity for B2B bookers which are inaccessible to the general public.
“That means that there’s no competition in terms of competing for the same guests for the same product,” McAlpine told CW. MS
Pictured are Imagine BDM Cam Marsh, advisors Delwyn Robinson, Leisa Steele, and Gay Mathis, and McAlpine.
