Australia’s love affair with cruising is set to explode in the next four years, with the Australasia cruise boom expected to soar to 1.72 million by 2028 according to the latest report by Cruise Lines International Association.
It will mean an extra 460,000 over four years – or the equivalent of 129 new sailings of Majestic Princess with every cabin taken.
But the big question is whether there are enough ships – or space to berth them – to achieve this number.
This sharp growth of cruise passengers is significantly higher than the 1.49 million who will sail in 2024 and 1.26 million last year. Already, there are calls for more capacity in Sydney.
Why the cruise boom?
CLIA’s State of the Cruise Industry Report released this week said that cruising is one of the safest and best ways to discover the world.
The report showed that globally, 82 per cent of those who cruised planned to cruise again while 71 per cent of international travellers are considering taking their first cruise.
Across the world, not only is cruise tourism resilient, it is rebounding faster than other forms of travel, the report found.
“Cruise travel reached 107 per cent of 2019 levels in 2023 – with 31.7 million passengers sailing. This compares to overall international tourism arrivals which are 12 per cent lower than 2019.
“By 2027, cruise is forecast to grow to nearly 40 million passengers,” the report said.
Cruisers are getting younger
Generation X and millennials are the most enthusiastic about planning a cruise holiday. The report said that 65 per cent of the world’s cruise travellers are in the younger generation with 36 per cent under the age of 40. The average age of a cruiser is now 46 years of age.
There is an increasing number of new-to-cruise travellers with 27 per cent of cruisers over the past two years are new -to-cruise – an increase of 12 per cent.
Nearly 10 per cent of all cruisers are solo travellers and most sail from North America.
Multi-generation families pick cruise holidays
Multi-generation travellers choose cruise holidays as their top choice with at least one third of families sailing with at least two generations.
The report found that value for money and the ability to visit multiple destinations are the top reasons why cruisers love to cruise.
Expedition and exploration of the two poles particularly Antarctica are the fastest-growing cruise itineraries with the number of passengers going on expedition cruises has increased 71 per cent from 2019 to 2023.
Cruise injects billions to the economy
The economic contribution from cruise to the economy is enormous despite cruise being just 2 per cent of international industry.
Cruise generated $138 billion in the global economy and 1.2 million in jobs worldwide.
CLIA member cruise lines launched 8 ships this year and the number of new ships in the order book will rise to 35 ships by 2028.
Insiders point out that the figures are part of a global report and are an indicative picture only, rather than being based on confirmed deployment. CLIA Australasia intends to produce more specific Australian data very soon.
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it has been reported there will be 200 less cruise ship days around New Zealand this coming cruise season. This is contrary to this report. increased costs incurred with port fees bunkering etc have been noted.
Why do Carnival keep sending the Brisbane based Luminosa to Alaska every April for 6 months, don’t they think that we Queenslanders won’t cruise during our winter, get a grip CArnival and leave it here, you have enough US based ships to cover it every year.
Not happy Carnival cruiser..
As a cruiser I have done 28 cruises so far virtually everywhe rebut South America I would dearly love to do more since I suffered a bad fall which limits my travelling We therefore would love travel from Melbourne But word is there will be no more from Melb WHY is that ????Every cruise we ve done from here has been at full capacity What does that tell us ??? We are eager to travel from here .However the itinerary needs to be extended Or even longer trips Whats wrong with return to Asia from here ???We ve done new zealand enough & the south pacific But hey we love cruising even if only the experience never mind the destination Please Please Cruise companies give us a go …….
Clearly this is international data, and not Australian. This year there were over 80 ships in Australian waters and apparently that was too many for the market, because several lines will not be back next year.
For many international visitors, one Australian cruise was a post-Pandemic bucket list item, so they traveled in 2023 and 2024, but will probably not be back for a while
With cruising getting to be more popular two things need to happen.
Firstly the cruise lines have to expand their itineraries away from the east coast South Pacific & New Zealand there is the whole of Australia to visit.
Secondly the younger adults have realized that cruising is fun so the cruise lines have to cater for them with activities that suit them.
Would be very interested in cruises leaving and returning to Perth/Fremantle.
Well if the cruise lines would stop being children about it and sail more ships out of Melbourne there would be room. The whole “Oh, we’re not going there anymore because they raised the port fees in 2023” doesn’t hold any water because its still about $20 cheaper per person than Sydney, and the actual raise was the same dollar value as the one Sydney did the year before. Cruises to New Zealand are just as easy from Melbourne as they are from Sydney (Maybe not so much for the South Pacific islands) and they could get more tours around Tassie and even do 10-12 day return trips across to Adelaide and Perth.