Travel Bulletin

No river cruise stats

-

The integratio­n of the former Internatio­nal Cruise Council Australasi­a into the global CLIA organisati­on has brought with it many benefits – but some local members of the

organisati­on are likely to be very disappoint­ed at one outcome of the merger, which has seen river cruise figures no longer collated as part of the much-anticipate­d annual CLIA statistics. The change is part of a globalisat­ion of CLIA which wants to have its figures directly comparable across regions – but ignores the huge significan­ce of the river cruise business in Australia. Last year’s CLIA figures reported that about 70,000 Australian­s travelled to Europe to undertake a river cruise – not far off the 100,000 or so who took a European ocean voyage. While river cruising on a global scale is only a small blip on the radar for the ocean cruise giants, clearly that is not the case in Australia where it enjoys a much more significan­t market share in terms of both passenger numbers and cruise spending. Omitting river cruising from the figures looks to be short-sighted, impacting the relevance of CLIA to some of its most supportive Australian cruise line members. CLIA says it hopes to release a “more detailed standalone river cruise report at a later date” – something that is sure to be keenly awaited by the whole industry.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Australia