Kiwis all aboard the cruise craze
The cruise industry is one of the biggest movers in the Kiwi travel boom.
A record 90,184 New Zealanders took ocean cruises last year, a 36 per cent jump on the previous 12 months.
River cruises are also surging in popularity as a way to see Europe with one company reporting double-digit growth for every year over a decade.
Flight Centre NZ managing director Dave Coombes said river cruising was booming.
“It’s gone absolutely nuts. I think ocean cruising went nuts first, now it’s river cruising.”
While river cruising is not picked up in the Cruise Lines International Association’s source market report, a major operator says it has become desirable for baby boomers from New Zealand and Australia.
Avalon Waterways NZ manager Troy Ackerman said many had switched their interest from Canada and Alaska to river cruising. Up to 10,000 Kiwis were cruising in Europe each year and were happy to pay about $750 a day for the all-inclusive experience.
“When I raise that [ price] throughout the country people don’t bat an eyelid. The pricing recently has been relatively stable but always at a relatively high point. The thing that has helped recently is that airfares are so much cheaper.”
Avalon has more than a third of the market out of New Zealand.
“We’ve been seeing doubledigit growth since we started the programme back in 2003. I know the others are doing very well, as well.”
Itineraries were offering more active experiences for younger travellers.
Association figures showed New Zealand was one of only four international markets to record a double-digit increase last year, beaten only by emerging hot-spot China.
Numbers are likely to be boosted in the coming year with cruise lines introducing new capacity. The association’s 2016 Source Market Report shows numbers of New Zealanders taking ocean cruises (anywhere in the world) have doubled since 2012.
Australia and New Zealand managing director for Royal Caribbean Adam Armstrong said with bigger, newer, more feature-packed ships than the region had seen before, the amount of choice increased and so did awareness of the cruise holiday option.
In spite of more capacity, demand was outstripping supply.
“While local cruising is enjoying exponential growth, we’re also seeing incredible growth figures for the fly/ cruise market,” he said.
Across all three brands (Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises), the average annual growth for Kiwis choosing an Asian cruise was 16 per cent, while the Caribbean was growing at an average 14 per cent and the Mediterranean at 8.