Australian cruising is at a near all-time high – but the industry issues warning of the future

• CLIA has released its figures on how the Australian cruise industry fared in the year 2024.
• Australia’s post-pandemic cruise growth continues, nearly matching its record year in 2018, with a massive 1.32 million.
• However, the head of Cruise Lines International Association Australasia warns that governments need to work harder to persuade operators to base ships here.

Australia’s post-pandemic cruise growth continues to trend upwards, with 1.32 million Aussies taking a cruise in 2024, a 5.9% rise from 2023. Even more growth came in the form of overseas visitors, with 247,000 cruisers coming across the ditch to cruise in Australia, New Zealand or the South Pacific, a 14% rise from 2023. 

However, while the numbers reported from the Cruise Lines International Association report are positive, the Managing Director of CLIA Australasia Joel Katz says there is still cause for concern.

“Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific are incredibly popular cruise destinations, but they are also a challenging environment for cruise lines to operate in, so we need a regional focus on encouraging cruise ship deployment in local waters.

“Demand is strong, but we need governments, destinations and industry stakeholders to work together to address the high costs and regulatory difficulties we experience in the region. Cruising supports many thousands of local jobs, but we are going to suffer a decline in cruise ship deployment in this region while other global destinations reap the economic rewards.”

These comments confirm what Cruise Passenger has long been reporting, that regulatory difficulties and high costs for cruise lines are slowly but surely reducing Australian cruise capacity. 

Over recent years Australia’s cruise capacity has dropped about 30%, with a large bulk of these changes set to be felt in the coming season. States such as Victoria and South Australia are scheduled to see particularly low levels of cruise in the coming seasons.

This is due to the cessation of operations by P&O Australia, cruise lines like Royal Caribbean and Princess withdrawing some ships from the region, and other cruise lines such as Norwegian Cruise Line and Cunard no longer homeporting ships in Australia.

However, Katz makes it clear that Aussies loyalty to cruising and love for cruising close to home have ensured the Aussie cruise market has stayed strong up until now.

“Australia has long been home to some of the world’s most dedicated cruise fans and the number of Aussie cruisers continues to rise.

“More Australians are cruising within our local region and more are cruising in other parts of the world, which highlights why cruising is such a rewarding way to travel.”

Plenty of other interesting data came out of the report, from the fact that cruisers are getting younger, right up to an increase in fly-cruise.

Here are all the quick facts  to know about Australia’s year of cruising 2024:

Fast facts 

• 1.32 million Aussies take a cruise in 2024, up from 1.25 million in 2023, close to the record 1.35 million Aussies that sailed in 2018.
• Almost one in every 20 Australians took a cruise in 2024, this equates to one of the highest rates in the world.
• The average age of the Aussie cruiser continues to stay a bit lower than it used to be, sitting at 48.4 years, compared to 50.4 years in 2019.
• Across the world, 34.6 million people took an ocean cruise in 2024, a 9.3% increase on last-years record setting figure of 31.7 million.
• Australia is the world’s fourth largest cruise market, behind the USA, Germany and the UK.