A day in the life of… Andrew Schweitzer, Viking

Sam Ballard heads out for a day on the road with Viking’s regional sales manager for the south to tell agents all about the cruise line’s exciting new developments

With more ocean and river ships on the horizon, returns to Egypt and Ukraine, as well as new itineraries from its existing fleet, there is little wonder that Viking’s team need to keep touching base with agents up and down the country. The company will be launching eight river ships next year (two of which will be on the Douro) so there is plenty to talk about through both its river and ocean product. We joined Andrew Schweitzer, Viking’s regional sales manager for the south, to get a grip on what travel agents are most excited about in the coming months.

10am
Marlborough
The first stop off on our tour of the southwest was with Elaine’s Travel, an independent store which recently celebrated its first anniversary. Elaine Ferry, the owner, was interested to hear that Viking will be adding two more ships to its Douro fleet in 2019 as demand is soaring for the product.

11am
Royal Wootton Bassett
We arrived at Cannon Travel just in time to help sort out a query for a group of singles. The store’s agents – Debbie, Moira and Danielle – said that, while river was as popular as ever, they were seeing their Viking Ocean business start to grow, too.

1pm
Malmesbury
Jo and Meg at Miles Morgan have their first passengers on board a Viking Ocean cruise right now – in the sunny Caribbean. So our delivery of brand new ocean brochures arrived just in time. Viking will be releasing them quarterly from now because of company’s rapid growth.

2.30pm
Cirencester
Laura and Rachel were holding the fort at the Miles Morgan store in Cirencester. The company has had a strong January and wants to get its agents to focus on cruise. It brought Viking on as one of its prestigious preferred partners recently – helping to develop its sales even further.

4.15pm
Cheltenham
Beth at Miles Morgan wanted to firm up details of the event the company has planned with Andrew. He’ll be discussing the merits of a wine cruise with a local wine club – talking about the chateaus the cruise will call at as well as the types of wine they’ll be able sample both on and off board.

Would you like the Viking team to visit your store? If you are in the south, email Andrew Schweitzer on andrew.schweitzer@vikingcruises.com or if  you are in the north, email Jenny Wade on jenny.wade@vikingcruises.com