Celebrity Cruises’ UK boss vows to hold pricing as wave sales soar

UK-based Celebrity Apex, Hawke said, is in “a really good position” in terms of how well sold it is. “[Apex] is better sold than our average for the year,” he said. 

“She is performing better than our European ships, that is a combination of UK demand and international demand.

“We’re cautiously optimistic [about the future]. We’re happy with where we are.” 

Hawke added that his EMEA team’s “big focus” was the Med. “Demand is strong,” he said. “This week, we’re ahead of where we expected to be. And our big swathe of activity with consumers and trade only starts now.” 
He also admitted that the four Edge-series ships were driving the brand currently.

Claire Stirrup, UK and Ireland sales director, insisted that Celebrity was “different” from other lines.

“Celebrity is about value,” she said. “We’ve got a really strong frontline seller campaign.

“We’ve been doing a lot with trade pre-Christmas and last week because we want to make sure that they’ve got what they want.” 

Hawke also revealed that Celebrity had increased its air capacity for fly-cruise customers for 2024 and confirmed that Celebrity was in discussions with mainstream airlines about chartering flights for 2025.

"We’ve got good allocation for 2024," he said. "We’ve got flights leading in from £49 for a range of sailings from Dublin, Manchester and Gatwick. 

"We’ve added around 25% to our allocation [year on year]. Agents will be able to find air [options]," he said.