CRUISING has passed the significant one million barrier according to figures published by Cruise Information Service, part of the Passenger Shipping Association.
Last year, for the first time, over one million British people chose cruising as a holiday(1,053,727), of which 964,000 went on deep sea trips. In fact ocean cruising rose by 17.4% and river cruising dropped 23% to just 90,000.
With the notional spend £1,052 this represents over ”1bn in revenue, the average cruise price actually dropped 5%.
Interestingly 100,000 North American passengers chose to cruise in Europe, a useful contribution to airline traffic, much of it at premium levels.
From the UK the cruise companies used a mixture of scheduled flights and special charters to connect with the ships.
First timers represented 41% of the market and the average passenger age was just under 55.
However new shipbuilding is slowing down from 16 in 2003 to just seven next year and a total of 17 between now and 2008 including Royal Caribbean”s Ultra Voyager at 160,000 tons, and 4,000 plus passengers (eight A380 loads), the biggest yet.
http://www.cruiseinformationservice.co.uk