Ponant has urged travel agents to attend one of its seven remaining ship visits this year as the line aims to highlight how ‘UK-friendly’ it is.

The French cruise line is hosting ship visits in London, Isle of Wight, Dover, Dartmouth, Penzance and Rosyth. The final ship visit is on 12 September.

About 250 agents have already signed up, but UK and Ireland Sales Director Nabil Maillard (pictured) confirmed there are still places left.

He said: “Ponant is a French company, but we’ve been working hard to be as friendly to UK agents as possible.

“We’ve been working on flight packages and we have a dedicated reservations team for UK and Irish agents – that shows a lot of progress. We really want to be as UK-friendly as possible.”

He added: “The UK is one of the top cruise markets in the world. Many cruise lines are doing great things, we need to be doing these things too.”

Nabil told 70 agents, who joined a seminar-at-sea sailing on ice-breaking expedition ship Le Commandant Charcot last week, they would get 5% bonus commission on any Ponant bookings until 31 May.

Travel Counsellor Sarah Bolton said agents would find it easier to ‘talk about the product and sell it’ following the seminar.  

But she added: “I’ll try not to let the uplift in commission sway me in terms of what I recommend to customers.”

Asked which customers would like Ponant, she said: “I don’t think it’s for the traditional cruise customer.

“It’s more for the independent traveller. The ships take you to places that you can’t book by yourself.

“Le Commandant Charcot is for people who want to learn. It will attract these people.”

To register for a ship visit, agents must email [email protected].