Watches are the category in cruise retail where the gap between good execution and average execution is most visible in the numbers – and most felt by guests. We asked Keisha Daly, our Watches Category Manager, what separates the brands driving flagship-level performance at sea from those treating cruise as a secondary channel. What she describes is not a niche opportunity. It is one of the most strategically undervalued propositions in the watch industry.  

Is cruise really a strategic channel for watch brands, or still secondary to airports?  

Not secondary - structurally different. In an airport, a brand has minutes with a customer. On a cruise, it has a week, or even more. That changes everything about what is commercially possible: the ability to introduce a brand from scratch, bring its heritage to life across multiple interactions, build genuine consideration, and convert a guest who had no intention of buying a watch when they boarded.  

For watches specifically, cruise is the closest thing in travel retail to a flagship boutique experience. And the numbers reflect that. Our top-performing ships for Tudor sit in the top 20 watch retail accounts in the UK - not the top 20 cruise accounts, but the top 20 across every flagship store, every airport, and every department store concession in the country. Often top ten. That is not a secondary focus. That is a strategic one.  

What guest behaviours do you see for watches on board?  

Two distinct profiles, and the best operations serve both simultaneously. First-time cruisers shop through discovery - relaxed, emotionally driven, often partner-led conversations that lead somewhere that the guest didn’t anticipate when they walked in. Experienced cruisers plan before they board. They know the savings, they know the exclusives, they have already identified the category. They are coming to acquire.  

Both convert well. What cruise provides is the time to support both properly - to let a discovery conversation develop over two days, and to give a considered purchaser the service level that a significant purchase deserves. No other retail channel consistently delivers that for a watch brand.  

Are there new demographic opportunities opening up?  

Significantly. The cruise demographic is shifting younger and more diverse, and our curation reflects that - a deliberate range from gifting pieces at entry level all the way through to high-end luxury, covering guests at every stage of their watch-buying journey.  

One observation that consistently surprises brands: cruise over-indexes in women’s watch sales relative to the broader market. The partner-led purchase dynamic and the relaxed setting make the category genuinely accessible to women who would not walk into a luxury boutique on the high street. That is an audience many watch brands are not actively targeting in cruise, and it represents real untapped potential.  

Itinerary also shapes the opportunity. Colder weather routes such as Norway and Alaska tend to outperform beach itineraries in this category, driven by an older, more affluent guest profile and more time on board between excursions. Beach itineraries skew more towards gifting and entry-level. Neither is the wrong opportunity - they just need a different proposition, and brands that curate accordingly see it in their results.  

How important are exclusives and brand partnerships?  

Significant, when done with genuine commitment. Collaborations such as Princess x Breitling and P&O x Citizen have created cultural moments that drive incremental sell-through well beyond what standard assortment achieves - Breitling foosball tournaments during the Euros, Tudor reflex challenges linked to the All Blacks tour. Engaging, memorable, and commercially effective. That is always the standard to aim for.  

But the service infrastructure matters just as much as the headline activation. Private viewings. Sizing services. Suite delivery. Staff training that turns retail teams into genuine brand ambassadors. Exclusive SKUs and limited editions created specifically for the cruise channel. Brands that invest in those things consistently outperform those that do not. The ones sending standard assortment with minimal activation are not keeping pace, and increasingly they know it.  

What is the real commercial opportunity for watch brands thinking about cruise seriously?  

Three things that are genuinely hard to replicate elsewhere.  

The first is access to a pre-qualified audience. Every guest on board has already demonstrated a willingness to invest in experiences, places, and memories. For a watch brand, that is an exceptional starting point.  

The second is targeting precision. We understand guest behaviour at a level that allows different strategies to run simultaneously across a single voyage - reaching guests who want to buy early and fulfil a planned acquisition, while running a parallel discovery experience for those who want to explore across the week. No other retail environment offers that kind of live, bespoke targeting opportunity.  

The third is data. Transactional data per ship, guest understanding by cabin type, brand interaction data from activations, survey insight on guest attitudes. We share that back with brand partners as a genuine input into strategy - not as a courtesy, but because the partnership performs better when both sides are working from the same picture.  

 Watch brands treating cruise as a strategic channel are seeing the returns. The question is whether yours is one of them.