Cruise Holidays News
Gill’s Cruise Centre (company name “E. & M.E Gill Ltd”), a family owned cruise specialist from Cardiff, ceased trading yesterday following 55 years of trading.
Gill’s Cruise Centre were ABTA bonded which means customers with forward bookings should have their bookings protected.
I have a booking made through Gill’s Cruise Centre. What now ? - Phone ABTA Consumer Services on telephone number 0300 303 1522 and quote claim number AB7800
CRUISE DEAL ALERT !
Updated : 19th January 2011 – We just wanted to let cruise news readers know about a lucrative new promo code that has been released by Thomson Cruises (Thomson.co.uk) to provide customers £50 off all cruise bookings to the value of £1000 or more when booked online at Thomson.co.uk/Cruises
£50 Thomson Cruises promo code = 16442
£50 per booking is applicable on sailings from Marmaris, Turkey on Thomson Celebration only. Valid for bookings from 19th January 2011- 24th January 2011 for departures between 01st May 2011 and 31st Oct 2011. Minimum spend £1000 per booking. Offer applies to new bookings only. Offer excludes cruise only (no flight) bookings.
Cruise.co.uk have launched an affiliate programme through Affiliate Future who are a specialist in affiliate programmes for the travel industry.
Here’s an example of the creative that affiliates can add to their websites.
An affiliate scheme online is normally where a website owner (“publisher”) puts adverts on their website and is rewarded for any sales, bookings or in some cases enquiries that are generated for the company (AKA “merchant”). If you look at the banners on this website, these are affiliate banners. If someone clicks on the banner and goes onto make a booking, the publishers of Cruise News will get a small percentage as a reward.
At Affiliate Window you can find P&O and Ocean Village along with LowCostCruising.com
After many months of preparation and anticipation, P&O is thrilled to announce that their newest ship, Azura, has arrived in her home port of Southampton.
At 116,000 tonnes and 290 metres in length Azura has a great deal to offer. Her ‘signature’ features include a restaurant by Michelin-starred chef Atul Kochhar, and a wine bar and restaurant by TV’s Olly Smith, The Retreat open air spa terrace, SeaScreen outdoor cinema and the P&O Cruises fleet’s first single staterooms.
Her naming ceremony on Saturday 10 April 2010 will be attended by a host of celebrities and, in the time honoured tradition, Azura’s godmother, former prima ballerina Darcey Bussell, will break a bottle of champagne against the ship to officially name her, Azura.
Azura departs for her 16 night Maiden Cruise on 12 April to visit a number of iconic Mediterranean ports. During her Maiden Season she’ll also visit the Canary Islands, Baltic, Norwegian Fjords, Northern Europe, the Caribbean and USA.
DFDS Seaways is reporting strong growth on their Port of Harwich (Essex, UK) to Esbjerg (Denmark) route which operates up to four times a week. For the year 2009, which was of course a struggle for many holiday companies, DFDS Seaways managed passenger growth of almost 10%. DFDS transported 93000 people in the period and also saw a strong growth in the number of vehicles.
DFDS Seaways UK Managing Director John Crummie has attributed the increase to Northern European tourists capitalizing on the weak pound, commenting:
“The stronger Euro has meant that England has become better value for money, and we have certainly seen a rise in the short break business from Scandinavia , which is undoubtedly being driven by the favourable exchange rate.”
Read the full press release at DFDSSeaways.co.uk/press
Mediterranean cruises - most popular for the Brits (38% market share, 22% growth). The main reason the Med is such a popular cruise destination is the availability of short 2-7 night package from UK/Europe, the rich history and wide range of ports of call meaning people can take many seperate Mediterranean cruise before they have exhausted themselves.
Caribbean cruises – second biggest for British tourists (17% market share) and the major market for the US. Alaska, Bahamas, Trans Canal, Mexico, Bermuda and Hawaii are the next biggest markets for US customers.
UK Cruises – A record 50 UK ports received visits from cruise ships in 2006. The number of all passengers embarking in the UK grew 15% to 576,000 passengers, of which non-UK passengers accounted for 127,000 – a growth of 27% year on year. Ports of call passengers to UK ports increased 22% to exceed 392,000 at UK ports in 2006. The total value of cruise passenger expenditure at UK embarkation or port of call ports was over €290m (£197m back then!). Approximately €67m (£45m) of this was spent by overseas residents. Scotland and the South of England continued to attract the most cruise visitors, however the East of England (e.g. departures from Harwich) had the biggest increase at four times its 2005 figure.
The cruise industry is the most exciting growth category in the entire leisure market. Since 1980, the industry has had an average annual passenger growth rate of 8.1% per annum, while this has slowed since the global economic downturn the cruise industry as a whole has many new and large ships on order and under construction.
The UK saw a 12% growth in cruise passenger numbers during 2006, and even more impressively a 19% growth in cruise nights booked in 2006. In 2007 in the UK, the fly-cruise market increased by 13% to 753,000 passengers. The continued growth in cruise holidays is all the more impressive when seen in context against the stagnation facing the overall package holiday market which, since peaking at more than 20.6m foreign inclusive holidays sold in 2002 has slipped back 8% to less than 19m in 2006. The cruise industry’s share of this market has increased 65% in five years and doubled over 10 years and in 2006 one in every 16 package holidaymakers chose a cruise. By 2008 The PSA reported that the UK cruise market hat hit 1.5 million passengers with 577,000 passengers taking an cruise from the UK and 900,000 passengers from Britain choosing to take a fly-cruise.
Niche segments are growing at an even faster pace, The eleven Specialist Cruise Collection members offer itineraries that focus on the destination rather than the onboard experience and visit exotic places best experience by sea, such as the Galapagos, Antarctica, the Arctic Circle including Greenland, Iceland and Norwegian Fjords, East Timor, Papua New Guinea and the remote Kimberly region of Australia.
International cruise markets growth
The German cruise market doubled in 7 years (ending 2003)
In the US – only 18% of people have ever taken a cruise – suggesting more room for growth in the world’s largest cruise market.
G & B Travel LTD which traded as Gillett Travel and Gillett Cruises has ceased trading.
The small Bolton based travel agency was, thankfully ABTA bonded and acted as agent for ATOL holders so cruise passengers money should be safe and eventually returned to them.
Gillett Travel sold cruises from all cruise lines including P&O, Cunard, Royal Caribbean, Silversea, NCL
The first thing you should do is contact the cruise line that you have booked with. If you are due to depart shortly then make sure the cruise line knows that. In most cases it is expected that the cruise lines will take over control of all existing bookings and passengers will be able to travel as normal. Those customers who have paid a deposit will pay the balance of the booking to the cruise line.
Thomson Dream will become the flagship for the Thomson cruises fleet when she launches in May 2010 with itineraries from Palma, Mallorca. In June and September the ship will be exclusively for adults and all year round there will be an adults only section on board. Have a look at this video for a sneak preview of the Thomson Dream which will be Thomson’s largest ship with around 1500 passengers, 600 crew. Learn more about the prices and itineraries at Thomson Cruises.
Thomson Dream has been purchased from Costa Cruises and was known as Costa Europa but will undergo an extensive refurbishment before she starts sailing for Thomson.
CLIA (the North American based Cruise industry body) reports that the cruise industry’s total economic benefit to the U.S. economy was $35.7 billion in 2006. The cruise industry generated nearly 348,000 American jobs, and direct spending by cruise lines and passengers on U.S. goods and services totaled $17.6 billion
Globally consolidated- 19 major cruise operating companies, about 150 ships and growing all the time
In the US there are 16,000 member travel agents of the CLIA which tell its own story of the size of the cruise holiday market.
The worldwide cruise boom continued in 2006 with more than 15.5m passengers booking ocean-going holidays – up 7% on 2005 and on target to top 20m within five years.
There is an ever growing range of cruise products available on the market – reflected in the increasing PSA (the UK cruise and ferry body) membership – boosted to 39 brands by five new members – offering something to suit everyone, varying in size (from 49 passengers to over 4,000 passengers) and itineraries, from polar bear tracking and adventure cruises to simply relaxing and unwinding with state of the art on-board facilities such as gyms, spas, garden villas, surfing pools, ice skating rinks, bowling alleys, and first class dining. This product innovation has been key to the growth of the industry, a trend we predict to continue with close to two million UK cruisers by 2010.
The “Value Chain” of the cruise industry includes shipbuilders, ports, travel agents and retailers, cruise liners – super yatchs, river cruises, airlines, suppliers of provisions, staffing companies and insurers.