Two agents who won the chance to be ship godmothers have christened Riviera Travel’s newest ships in Amsterdam.
Christina Astill from Go-Cruise and Tracey Scales from Travel Counsellors launched the Emily Bronte and Thomas Hardy at a ceremony on February 24.
Each agent announced the name of the ship and released the ceremonial bottle of champagne to smash against the vessel’s side.
The competition was only open to agents to say thank you for ongoing support, said marketing director for Riviera, Ben Hitchcock.
Hitchcock said: “The trade is a really important channel for us and we have been busy increasing the strength of our sales team to support them.
“Our plan next year is to get as many travel agents on board our ships as possible and this all starts with our agent godmothers.
“We didn’t want to have a celebrity as a godmother as this has been done before, we wanted to give back to our trade supporters and say thank you.”
During the christening ceremony Christina recited the naming speech in English while Tracey spoke in German.
Scales had already booked to sail on her ship, the Thomas Hardy, in December for a Christmas markets cruise before winning the godmother prize.
She said: “Riviera is such a great product I wanted to get on board but being named godmother is a real once in a lifetime opportunity.
“I was honoured to be asked to be a godmother and have loved the whole atmosphere of the ceremony and all the agents and supplier partners who attended.”
Christina said she was relieved the bottle smashed and said her cruise sales of Riviera were definitely due to see a boost after the trip.
“I’ve sold Riviera river cruise from its beginning when it first sold to the trade and my customers love it but I can see this increasing just from me visiting the hip.
“It is such a privileged to be named godmother of a new Rivera cruise ship, I still can’t believe it.”