The Palladium Hotel Group and CroisiEurope Cruises have joined supplier marketing organisation Tipto.
The two suppliers bring the total number of members in the organisation to 22.
The announcement was made at this year’s Annual Tipto Afternoon Tea, a networking event for supplier members and agents, this year held at the Hotel Café Royal in London.
The Palladium Hotel Group, founded in the late 1960s, offers luxury properties worldwide and aims to use Tipto to grow its trade sales.
The group is entering a five year development phase and plans to use Tipto events, online training and social media to educate agents on its new products.
Joanne Peters, senior business development manager UK & Ireland, said: “Tipto’s reputation for running excellent events that offer the opportunity to meet a vast number of UK travel agents, made the decision to join an easy one. I know from experience the events are fun, interactive and engaging and truly believe that they will allow us to significantly grow our trade relationships.”
CroisiEurope, which has a history of more than 40 years in the river cruise sector, aims to cement agent relationships worldwide by joining Tipto and ensure its affordable concept is understood by the trade in order to better sell its product.
It has 56 ships that vary in size from 16 to 198 passengers. It offers a variety of European river cruise destinations and has expanded to offer six canal barges in destinations including France, Croatia, Vietnam and southern Africa. Its newest acquisition is a 124-passenger ocean ship, La Belle Des Oceans, based in Canada for summer 2020.
John Fair, UK sales director, CroisiEurope Cruises, said: “We are delighted to be joining Tipto in its 21st year. The association’s well-established reputation and vast agent database will be fundamental to us achieving the goals we have set out for 2020.
“Tipto’s style of training and networking will be the key to us growing agent relationships, educating agents on our affordable style of river cruise, and generally supporting agents with the information they need to entice customers and secure sales.”
Tipto chairman Nick Hughes welcomed both new members.
He said: “As a worldwide hotel group, Palladium boosts our hotel and resort credentials and we are confident agents will benefit from the training and news the team will provide at events.
“CroisiEurope is a great addition to our member portfolio and will sit perfectly within our already strong cruise credentials, adding an important dimension to our cruise training options.
“I have no doubt that the Face2Face style of events Tipto offers will support CroisiEurope’s goal of growing agent relationships nationwide and educating them on its varied and growing river cruise product, to help with those all-important sales targets.”