TL;DR
- Lisa Holdroff, assistant manager at Newell’s Travel in Falmouth, sailed on a 4-night Star Clippers fam from Malaga to Nice.
- Within two weeks of disembarking, she’d booked 7 passengers across several Star Clippers sailings.
- Total booking value… £33,000.
- Her follow-up wasn’t one channel, it was four: a Falmouth Life magazine article, an agency window display, the Newell’s website blog, and direct calls to existing clients.
- Star Clippers is currently running reduced-rate agent sailings in July and August 2026.
- Luke Swarbrook has been appointed regional sales manager for the north at the line.
A Closer Look
If you’ve ever wondered what a fam trip looks like when the product does the work, this is it. Lisa Holdroff, assistant manager at the Falmouth branch of independent agency Newell’s Travel, joined a 4-night Star Clippers sailing from Malaga to Nice. Two weeks after she got home, she had 7 passengers booked across several Star Clippers sailings, totalling £33,000. Not a slow burn… a fortnight.
The line she keeps coming back to says a lot about why it worked. “I still get emotional showing clients my videos of us sailing out of Malaga as the sails were being hoisted,” Lisa told Cruise Trade News reporter Josie Klein. That isn’t a sales pitch you can fake. And her second line is the one your team will probably nod at: “clients recognise genuine enthusiasm… this isn’t cruising in the traditional sense.” The product, in other words, gave her something distinctive to talk about, and she ran with it.
The Helpful Bit
What’s interesting is how methodical the follow-up was once Lisa got back. She didn’t rely on one big push. There were four channels. She wrote an article for Falmouth Life magazine, the kind of local lifestyle title that lands in actual hands. She built a window display at the agency so passers-by could see the ship. She wrote up the experience as a blog post on the Newell’s website. And she picked up the phone to existing clients she thought might be a fit. The fam supplied the story… the four channels supplied the reach.
For anyone who hasn’t sailed Star Clippers, the product itself is the other half of the equation. These are tall ships with actual sails, small passenger numbers, and a more informal, hands-on atmosphere than a traditional cruise. Which is why “this isn’t cruising in the traditional sense” is doing real work in Lisa’s quote — clients who’d never normally consider a cruise often do consider this.
The Agent Angle
Good news for anyone reading this and thinking the same product could work for their client list. Star Clippers is currently offering reduced-rate agent sailings in July and August 2026, so the window to do what Lisa did is open right now. The line has also recently appointed Luke Swarbrook as regional sales manager for the north, so there’s a fresh point of contact for agents in that part of the country wanting to talk through training, fam access, or trade incentives.
The wider pattern in Lisa’s story is the one worth holding onto. A fam trip on its own books nothing. A fam trip plus a thought-through follow-up plan — local press, window display, blog, warm calls — books £33,000 in a fortnight. The product gave her the story, and Lisa did the rest.
Where This Shows Up in Real Life
If you’ve got clients who say cruising “isn’t for them”, this is a useful one to keep in your back pocket. Star Clippers tends to convert the cruise-sceptics, not the cruise-loyalists, which makes it a different conversation entirely… and a fam sailing in July or August might be the easiest way to find out whether it’s a fit for your own client base.
