Record number of British people now Cruising

Cruising is becoming more and more poplular, we certainly have noticed that here at Cruise.co.uk.

Sometimes passengers will mention to me on the telephone because of the current state of the economy they think that cruise companies may be struggling to sell the cruises, this on the whole couldn’t be further from the truth.

A lot more people now are “wiseing up” to what a fanstastic product the cruise holiday can be, there may still be people around that are short of money, but there are still plenty of people with enough for their holidays and cruise holidays can be very good value.

A record number of Britons took a cruise last year, up 6% from 2009, the latest figures from the Passenger Shipping Association have shown.

Some 1.62 million cruises were taken – more than double the figure recorded in 2001.

The PSA said the increase was set to continue, predicting that Britons will take 1.7 million cruises this year and two million by 2014.

Cruising now accounts for 11.7% of the overseas package holiday sector, compared with 10.6% in 2009. In 1997, less than 3% of package holidays booked were cruises.

Meanwhile, cruising from British ports increased by 10% – with more than 650,000 people choosing to cruise from the UK. Fly-cruises were also up, with 968,000 people choosing to take a cruise abroad, a rise of 3%.

The Mediterranean continued to be the most popular cruise destination, with 43% of Brits choosing the region – an 18% increase compared with last year. Northern Europe retained second place.