Revealed: How Regional cities are hardest hit by Australia’s cruise capacity decline in 2025/26

• Australia’s cruise capacity decline is hitting regional ports most.
• Yet remote areas want cruise ships the most.
• With planning and infrastructure improvements, regional cruising could be at the forefront of the industry.

Cruise Passenger has thoroughly reported Australia’s cruise capacity decline, with the industry losing around 35% of cruise capacity over three years.

The effects of this have been seen across the industry. From P&O Cruises shutting down, Princess Cruises being nearly sold out, Royal Caribbean cruises rocketing in price and more, cruisers are already feeling the effects of the industry decline. 

However, not as frequently mentioned is the fact that Australia’s cruising decline is disproportionately affecting some regions of Australia, such as Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia. Many coastal Australian cities are seeing declines in cruise far stronger than even the 30% overall decline in capacity.

Even in cases where overall ship visits remain high, these tends to be smaller ships with a few hundred passengers, which offer less economic benefit per visit to local towns.

This is happening because cruise lines have been centralising operations to Sydney and Brisbane, largely choosing to only homeport out of those destinations. Cruise lines are also streamlining their itineraries, offering less variety and more standardised itineraries. 

Longer cruises out of Sydney or Brisbane that would have the time to visit more Australian destinations are more commonly going to the South Pacific or New Zealand. These are beautiful destinations, but the lack of regional Australian visits are leaving Aussie towns out to dry.

The numbers tell the story simply. 

Western Australia perhaps provides the most prominent example, with the state seeing a massive 52% plummet in cruise ship visitation. 

Cruise numbers in Adelaide show a similar story, with visits by ships that carry over 2000 passengers, dropping 56%. This is especially important as it also means less stops in more remote destinations such as Port Lincoln and Kangaroo Island.

Similarly, Tasmania cruise numbers will have dropped 27% between the 2023/24 season and the 2025/26 season, with towns like Burnie and Port Arthur especially feeling the effects.

Melbourne has also seen a huge decline in cruise tourism, and while Cruise Passenger analysis shows this won’t affect their tourism numbers, it does mean less visits to destinations like Phillip Island, and less cruises into South Australia. 

The issue is that big Australian cities aren’t very incentivised to prioritise the growth of cruise, they generally already see a lot of tourism and growth is strong. Cruise ships also aren’t always the most popular with residents in big cities.

However, when a cruise ship is sent where it’s wanted, the result can be spectacular. Eden has set the example for the rest of Australia by working carefully on its cruise plan and securing government funding for port infrastructure upgrades.

Now it’s regularly seeing large ships arriving, often carrying more people than the entire town’s population, who are ready to spend money in the local community. Eden locals tend to embrace cruise ships, even volunteering to welcome guests and become ambassadors for the town.

Towns all over Australia could benefit from this level of investment and planning.

If the state and federal governments could work to improve port infrastructure then destinations around Australia such as Port Lincoln, Geraldton, Kangaroo Island, Exmouth, Esperance, Bunbury and more, could see more cruise ships, bringing badly needed tourism dollars into local communities.

This would not just have the benefit of showing Australia’s beautiful coastal towns to more tourists and injecting money into their communities, but would also solve a few other industry problems as well.

It would offer more itinerary variety for Aussie cruisers that have been calling out for changes in itineraries from lines such as Royal Caribbean and Carnival. There would be a wider range of destinations for cruisers to visit and lines could dedicate more cruises to stay inside Australia, rather than travel to other countries.

This would also offer more incentive for cruise lines to homeport ships out of cities like Adelaide, Perth and Hobart, which would mean significantly more cruise expenditure for these towns. It would also mean that cruisers who live in and around these cities and are sick of having to fly to get on a ship, would once again have cruises leaving from their doorstep.

If the Australian government and cruise industry can work together to get cruise ships into our regional towns, the cruise industry, local towns and faithful cruisers could all benefit greatly.