Accomodation specialist youtravel.com has renewed its distribution deal with easyCruise for a second year and is aiming to increase bookings for its ship easyCruise Life by 20% in 2009. Both parties heralded the first year of the partnership as a “complete success” with trade sales through youtravel.com making up a significant of proportion of its UK sales. Bookings from the UK account for around 50% of overall sales for easyCruise.

easyCruise sales and marketing director Paul Ellerby said: “I’m delighted to have renewed the youtravel.com deal. Last year worked really well for both of us and I am sure that thanks to new itineraries, including a new seven-night cruise from Bodrum, the relationship will continue to go from strength to strength.” Iz Garfield, national sales manager for youtravel.com, added: “We’ve worked closely with the easyCruise team to ensure that our agent partners have got access to great value prices. Our prices are on a half-board basis and include housekeeping services.”

Youtravel.com and easyCruise are planning another joint trade fam trip for Spring 2009 for between 25 and 30 agents following on from the popularity of this year’s trip, and both are expecting demand to be high. Ellerby said: “Taking key agents onboard is the best possible way of explaining what the easyCruise concept is all about. This year’s group was incredibly impressed with the ship and all have been great supporters of us ever since.”

New easyCruise Life itineraries for 2009:
April to early June: two short cruise itineraries, one for three nights, the other for four nights.
Three nights: Athens – Kusadasi – Mykonos – Athens. Prices from £47 per person per night on May 4 departure
Four nights: Athens – Kusadasi - Patmos / Mykonos (arrives Saturday afternoon and leaves Sunday night) - Athens

Late June to October: two alternating seven-night cruises, both with two embarkation points – Athens and Bodrum
The Aegean Islands: Athens – Mykonos – Bodrum – Kos – Rhodes – Crete – Syros – Athens
The Greek Islands and Turkey: Athens – Kalymnos – Bodrum – Kos – Paros – Mykonos – Syros - Athens

Garfield added: “The fact that customers can choose to embark the ship in either Athens or Bodrum for the seven-night cruises means that agents are able to offer them more flexibility with flight choices and also the chance to add a hotel stay in either Greece or Turkey.”