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Wow! For the third time in four years Harding+ has won Cruise Retailer of the Year at the Frontier Awards. It’s an honor to once again step onto the stage. Over the past year, our business has evolved significantly from ship launches and bold brand activations to major refits and the rollout of a rigorous Customer Transformation strategy at the heart of our growth. Every process - spanning supply chain, warehouse management, store experience, and the onboard selling model - was reviewed with one clear goal: to deliver smarter, simpler, and more personalised retail experiences for every guest. Huge thanks to our incredible teams, both landside and at sea, as well as to our cruise line, brand, and operational partners for their creativity, support, and collaboration.
We are thrilled to share that Harding+ has been shortlisted for the 2025 TRBusiness - Travel Retail Business Awards in the Retail Activation category - recognising our bold and playful Palm Pals concept onboard P&O Cruises Iona. This activation brought together creativity, collaboration and commercial thinking to deliver a standout experience onboard, designed to delight guests and drive impact. We are incredibly proud of the teams who helped bring Palm Pals to life, and grateful to our partners who continue to back innovative, guest-first retail at sea.
We are the retail sector leaders in what is a booming cruise industry. We are consistently driving real growth for brands, even as high street retail faces challenges. Here are the three data-driven strategies we believe will drive brand success throughout 2025. Based on sales proof points, 30,000 onboard guest surveys and the experience in running 300 shops across 85 ships, the strategies to help existing cruise retail players and new aspirants win includes: > meeting customer expectations with fully rounded brand experiences > investing in exclusives and hyper personalisation approaches > working with the rise of the cruise ‘family dynamic’ as a powerful shift for planning Read more at the link below:
We are so honoured to be shortlisted for two Retail Week Awards – Specialty Retailer of the Year and The EV Cargo Digital Excellence Award! It’s wonderful to be recognised alongside so many amazing brands and act as an ambassador for cruise retail during incredible growth for the industry. We can’t thank Retail Week enough for shortlisting us, and we can’t wait to attend the ceremony in London next spring.
We were proud to be platinum sponsors for the 2024 DFNI Cruise Conference in June this year, hosted in Istanbul. The DFNI Cruise Conference is one of the most important dates in the travel retail calendar, bringing cruise retailers, vendors and cruise lines together for two days of panels, pitch sessions, networking and social events. Harding+ appeared on two panels during the event and hosted a third. CEO Chris Matthews was featured on the State of the Industry panel, which opened the event, and spoke about the prevalence of data and demographic diversification, and how it is shaping the future of cruise retail. The event was a huge success with some important takeaways around the advancement and increasing sophistication of cruise retail. There is plenty to look forward to in the second half of 2024 and will doubtlessly be much more to discuss during the rest of the year’s upcoming events and indeed next year’s conference.
