How Large Is The Cruise Market?............

[nycruise]

I saw that Princess and NCL introduced The Royal and The Breakaway this year, adding a total of over 8,000 additional passengers each week. Both lines are adding sister ships this year, adding another 8,000 additional passengers per week.

 

That totals almost an additional 1 million passengers per year.

 

Is the cruise market unlimited?

[Aquahound]

That's not even the beginning. RCI is introducing Quantum this year, Anthem next year, and a third Oasis Class ship in 2016. Carnival is also building Vista, their largest ship to date.

 

Seems to me cruising is becoming more popular.

[calliopecruiser]

And those are just the North American-focused ships. Viking will be adding ocean cruising to their business, which so far has been limited to river cruising. Costa, P&O, and Aida will all be adding 3000+ capacity ships to their rosters, and TUI (is that part of Hapag-Lloyd?) will be adding a couple of 2500 passenger ships to their fleet.

[Sipsey]

That is a terrific question. I am what you'd maybe call an "occasional cruiser". The posters on this board, many of them, go more than once per year. How many of those types there are, I can't say.

 

But the type of increases described above seem awfully ambitious to me. My trips have been in the spring and fall when the ships seem not to be at capacity. Maybe some older ships are being retired and that is fueling the building boom.

[paul929207]

There are many untapped or undertapped markets like Japan and China.

[leaveitallbehind]

I saw that Princess and NCL introduced The Royal and The Breakaway this year, adding a total of over 8,000 additional passengers each week. Both lines are adding sister ships this year, adding another 8,000 additional passengers per week.

 

That totals almost an additional 1 million passengers per year.

 

Is the cruise market unlimited?

 

In 2013, the global cruise revenue was a reported $36.2 billion (4.5% increase over 2012) with 20.9 million passengers (3.3% increase over 2012).

 

Unlimited? Hard to say. Growing? Apparently.

Edited January 13, 2014 by leaveitallbehind

[leaveitallbehind]

...and the breakdown by leading cruise lines is:

 

Carnival (which includes Carnival, Princess, AIDA, HAL, P & O, Ibero, Cunard, & Seabourn) - 48.4%

 

RCI (which includes Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Pullmantur, CDF, & Azamara) - 23.3%

 

The remaining 28.3% is spread between 35 other lines combined.

 

(Source for all information: Cruise Market Watch)

Edited January 13, 2014 by leaveitallbehind

[taglovestocruise]

I saw that Princess and NCL introduced The Royal and The Breakaway this year, adding a total of over 8,000 additional passengers each week. Both lines are adding sister ships this year, adding another 8,000 additional passengers per week.

 

That totals almost an additional 1 million passengers per year.

 

Is the cruise market unlimited?

 

A total of 6 new ships were added in 2013 with a total passenger capacity of 14,074. From 2014 to 2015, a net of 13 more new cruise ships will come online adding 39,297 lower births, or 8.7% to passenger capacity. The ships from 2014 to 2015 will add $3.2 billion in annual revenue to the cruise industry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2014-2015 New Ships

Line Ship Date Lower Berths

Princess Regal Princess Spring 2014 3,600

NCL Norwegian Getaway Spring 2014 4,000

Tui Cruises Mein Schiff 3 Spring 2014 2,500

Viking Ocean Cruises Unnamed Spring 2014 888

Royal Caribbean Unnamed Fall 2014 4,100

Costa Cruises Unnamed Fall 2014 3,000

P&O Cruises Unnamed Spring 2015 3,611

AIDA Cruises Unnamed Spring 2015 3,250

Royal Caribbean Unnamed Spring 2015 4,100

Viking Ocean Cruises Unnamed Spring 2015 888

Tui Cruises Mein Schiff 4 Spring 2015 2,500

Holland America Unnamed Fall 2015 2,660

NCL Breakaway Plus Winter 2015 4,200

Total 39,297

 

UNLIMITED? MAYBE.. happy cruising

[ehfl]

There is still a big untapped audience. And when Cuba opens up, it will be a huge cruise market. The industry is still pretty young, and there is a lot of room for growth.

[BruceMuzz]

Depending on who you talk to, the cruise industry carried a total of between 15 million and 20 million passengers worldwide last year (2013).

 

My employers spend really big money with high profile polling companies and other "experts" who claim they can predict what the market will do in future.

While many of these "experts" disagree on many details, they ALL agree that the cruise industry is going to get bigger - much bigger.

 

While only about 10 million Americans took a cruise last year, 25 million additional Americans tell us that they want to take a cruise as soon as they have the time and/or money.

 

Market research is just getting started in China. The new Chinese middle class is much bigger (400 million) than the entire population of the USA. And the new Chinese middle class is growing very fast. They can easily get passports and visas and they have a lot of disposable income. Thus far, the number of Chinese who tell us they want to take a cruise is over 100 million.

 

The Japanese market has just opened up. The 6 or so ships that are marketed in Japan are sailing full - at double the fares that North Americans pay. Polls tell us that 50 million Japanese want to take a cruise since cruising is much cheaper for Japanese (at double the fares) than other types of travel.

 

For the moment, let's ignore all the other potential new markets. And let's assume that all those expensive "experts" are overly optimistic.

 

If we take just 10% of the numbers the experts are claiming; 10% of the 25 million Americans, 10% of the 100 million Chinese, and 10% of the 50 million Japanese, the new totals would double the current size of the international cruise industry.

How many new mega ships (at 5,000 passengers each per week or 250,000 passengers per year) would we have to build to accommodate an additional 17.5 million passengers per year?

Edited January 14, 2014 by BruceMuzz

[dorisis]

And when will Walmart get into the cruise business///

[calliopecruiser]

While only about 10 million Americans took a cruise last year, 25 million additional Americans tell us that they want to take a cruise as soon as they have the time and/or money.

 

This part made me laugh........there are lots of things we'd all answer "yes" to if asked "would you like to do X if you had the time or money to do it?" - they're called fantasies. I hope companies aren't putting their money into ventures based on that; fantasies don't often become reality.

 

I'm not saying more Americans won't cruise, but I suspect it will be more because of the competitive marketplace (rising costs of other vacations vs cruising, further decreased attractiveness of airline travel, etc) rather than simply that people have more time and money than they had before.

[Gunner22aa]

Like me are just hitting the retirement bracket now and many more will follow over the next 10 years. For the most part the retirement crowd has the time and the resources to help expand this indusrty emmencly. While not an industry analist I don't see how cruising can't continue to grow for the forseeable future.