What is the growth rate of the cruise industry

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.