Its official, More and more UK holiday goers are choosing to cruise.
In a recent annual conference in Fort Lauderdale it was announced that 2015 brought a record 1,789,000 passengers from the UK a 9% increase on the year before, and the biggest rise since 2009.
The number of passengers starting their cruise from a UK port increased to 840,000, a 12% increase. Fly-cruise passengers reached 949,000, up by 4.9%.
This is fantastic news for the cruise industry, but with the recent publicity are you really surprised? Over the last year we have seen the likes of Anthem of the seas, Britannia , NCL escape making waves in our seas with huge amounts of publicity and big entrances with more to come soon with Harmony, Ovations and Thomson Discovery due very soon. Also announcements from big cruise lines such as MSC, Disney cruise line, Celebrity and Princess all promising new cruise vessels and experiences coming over the next few years.
Cruising today is getting bigger, more extravagant with each cruise line fighting for top spot :-
*More technically advanced, allowing passengers to explore a new generation of cruising.
*Amazing value with fantastic prices and benefits which are far better value compared to a land-based All inclusive holiday.
*The variety of cruise line companies today means that no matter what kinds of traveller you are, there will be a cruise holiday for you.
Andy Harmer, UK & Ireland director of the Cruise Lines International Association, said: “The figures bear testament to the diversity that cruising offers today’s holidaymakers… demonstrated by the increasing number of ships sailing from British ports.”
So where are people favouring at the moment ? Mediterranean is still the top of UK cruise markets list accounting for 672,000 cruise guests, however this did surprise me as over the past year i have seen a huge rise is travellers asking for the Fjords and further afield to some of the unknown destinations such as Japan and others we have been featuring in our bucket list tours, which you can see here.
http://www.cruise.co.uk/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/131/2016/03/1512-TAILOR-MADE-BUCKET-LIST-44pp-DM-A3-v13p-compressed.pdf
It wasn’t just ocean cruising celebrating, river cruising also added to the excitement with an 8% increase in UK passengers which was a massive 150,300 extra river cruise fans.
Next year along with P&O, RCCL, Princess and Fred Olsen we will be welcoming NCL, MSC and Thomson all back to depart from Southampton offering passengers even more opportunities to have a fly free foreign holiday.
I’m sure you will agree this is a fantastic time to be cruise lover with so much more to look forward to . So if you are thinking a cruise holiday may interest you then there is no better time like the present to call me on 0330 303 8260 to find out some more about cruising or email me at mariet@cruise.co.uk
Marie
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