Eight months into his role as sales director for the Globus family of brands (encompassing Globus, Cosmos and Avalon Waterways), Phil Shipman described the ongoing trade strategy as "a bit of a restart" from the brands' previous approach.
While Phil was "very happy" with the trade's reception to Globus' peaks campaign, the sales director admitted that the trade team "did not necessarily have the resources we needed out on the road," and as peaks quietened down, has now pivoted towards "restructuring and refocusing the trade team."
Tailoring the trade approach
The result of that pivot is Phil's newly restructured trade sales team, which sees account managers focused principally on sectors rather than regions. Phil explained: "The same two account managers might have the same account, but potentially completely different conversations and budgets [depending on their sector focus]."
With three brands under the Globus umbrella, Phil feels that, although "there are a lot of similarities," between the touring and river cruise markets, both sectors "are very independent of each other," and Cosmos and Globus, as touring brands, and Avalon Waterways, as a river cruise brand, deserve "bespoke" approaches.
Phil is optimistic that the Globus brands will not only benefit from its key account managers' more focused approach, but also from "the opportunity to bring in new ideas... when you bring in new team members, they come with a whole host of new ideas and new ways of working.
"It's a melting pot of experience, really."
More to come
With the trade team now settled, focused and bedding in, Phil has promised further trade developments for what he described as a "hugely important" base of agent partners.
A new trade portal has been previously hinted towards: the revamped portal is "currently being launched and tested in the North American markets," embedding the bookability of the existing platform but with some new "enhancements" – details remain under wraps.
The Globus FoB University, the brands' unified trade training course, will soon host "fresh content," promised to be more "relevant and up-to-date" than current modules.
Phil also confirmed the return of the Avalon Waterways fam trip programme later this year.
"We are really excited about bringing the brands to life for agents, getting out there and doing as much trade engagement as we possibly can."
