Chorley's luxury cruise retailer Panache Cruises reveals secret to £35M turnover
A luxury cruise retailer based in Chorley has reported a record turnover of £35 for the last 12 months.
Panache Cruises has reported record turnover in its latest accounts and made a string of new hires.
The turnover of £35m for the 12 months to the end of July 2025 equates to a 56 per cent year-on-year rise from the £22.5m turnover the Chorley-based firm achieved for the same period in 2023/24.
Panache Cruises has also celebrated the first anniversary of the opening of its US office, which achieved sales of $10m (£7.3m).
To cope with the increased demand the firm has made a string of new hires including cruise experts Lisa Buckley, Wendy Mulholland and Rob Ledsham, along with finance apprentice Amy Ainsworth.
Chief executive James Cole said: "We’re delighted by our latest record-breaking turnover and the new colleagues that have joined the business.
"We’ve really intensified our efforts across the business. We’ve focused on our colleagues, making sure we develop our management teams.
"We’ve invested heavily in apprentices and plan to recruit another eight this year.
"We’re recruiting more new customers using social and digital marketing channels, along with increasing our number of repeat bookings."
In the last 12 months, Panache’s workforce has grown from a team of 67 to 76 across the UK and US.
Cole, who launched Panache Cruises in 2020, hailed the opening of the firm's US office in Orlando, Florida, as a ‘game-changer’.
He said: "I think it’s all about the approach that we’ve taken.
"We gave the US market a lot of respect. We knew that how we dealt with colleagues, customers and the cruise lines in the US was going to be very different than the UK.
"They may speak the same language as us but we still did our research and preparation."
Cole also revealed he had made a deliberate decision to visit the US office eight times since it opened.
"We want them to feel they are part of Panache Cruises," he said. "We have a full team weekly meeting every Tuesday or Thursday. We do it at 3.30pm so the US office can dial in so that we’re all together.
"Our star of the week covers the UK and the US. We want everybody to feel they’re part of a global organisation."