Princess Cruises, which is part of the Carnival Corporation & plc group, has set up a sales operations team in the UK and reached its 2016 guest target, Travel Weekly reports.

The team will be responsible for activities including online training, online and offline campaign collateral, events and communications. It will become the first cruise line in the UK to launch a live ‘web chat’ facility.

Currently on trial with launch in a few weeks, it will offer instant, real time online communication between agents and a member of the line’s contact centre.

“This year we enjoyed our best ever Wave period and the momentum has continued apace - our 2016 guest target has already been broken while we have comfortably surpassed projected sales for our key UK homeport ship, Emerald Princess,” Tony Roberts, vice president of Princess Cruises UK, was quoted by Travel Weekly as saying.