Marella Cruises has handed Denise van Outen a job title you won’t find on many CVs: Chief Chill-out Officer.
TUI’s ocean cruise line has appointed the TV and West End star to front a campaign about the great British struggle to switch off — backed by a survey suggesting we need every bit of the help.
According to polling of 2,000 Brits commissioned by Marella, half of us struggle to properly relax on holiday, taking an average of four days to fully unwind — a sobering statistic on a seven-night cruise.
Two thirds wish they found it easier to let go, and the research reckons the fix is switching on your “mental out of office” five days before departure.
The signs you need a holiday
The survey’s list of tell-tale symptoms will feel uncomfortably familiar: googling things to do at your destination (41%), getting the suitcase out weeks early (32%), ordering a mountain of holiday outfits online (24%), repeatedly checking your passport is in date (23%), and zoning out of work meetings entirely (15%).
Further down the scale sit smelling your suncream (10%), wearing sunglasses indoors (6%) and flip-flops in 8-degree weather (6%).
There’s a regional league table too: Liverpool mentally checks out earliest, nearly six days before departure, with Norwich and Oxford close behind, while Edinburgh holds out in work mode the longest.
And the turnaround is brutal — on average, Brits start thinking about the next holiday just 37 days after getting home from the last one.
The serious bit
Van Outen’s brief, in her words, is to “help Brits switch on their ‘mental out of office’ sooner” — via “lazy hacks” like champagne breakfasts in bed and doing the housework in your holiday clothes.
It’s a confection, of course, and the numbers are Marella’s own commissioned research rather than independent science.
But the campaign is built on a real product point: Marella’s all-inclusive fares cover flights, transfers, food, drinks and tips in one price, with departures from more than 20 regional UK airports — genuinely one of the lowest-faff routes into cruising, and part of why the line is a popular first cruise choice for British holidaymakers.
No word yet on whether the Chief Chill-out Officer gets a uniform.
Image: Marella Cruises
