Cruise-ship data reveals man drought on board
The first official figures on the cruise ship industry show there were 121 female passengers for every 100 men among the 222,000 passengers who visited New Zealand ports last year.
True to the stereotype of cruising attracting ‘‘silver travellers’’, three-quarters were aged between 50 and 80.
The biggest gender disparity was in the 50 to 69 age group where there were 63,000 female passengers, versus 46,000 males.
Half of the passengers were Australians, with just 7 per cent being New Zealanders.
Official tourism statistics previously only counted visitors arriving by air and missed most cruise passengers who were treated as being in transit.
Cruise New Zealand chairman Kevin O’Sullivan said his organisation had fought hard to change that because accurate figures were important for regions planning tourism marketing campaigns.
He said the difference between male and female numbers was a surprise. ‘‘Wherever possible people will go with friends or family, but there are those who are prepared to cruise solo.’’
The figures show total passenger numbers dropped 7 per cent for the year to the end of June, partly because of fewer winter cruises, but they were still 14 per cent higher than in 2015.
The Bay of Islands suffered the biggest fall in passengers, recording 23,241 fewer than the previous season, while Akaroa had an extra 18,502 passengers.
Four out of every five cruise ship passengers visited Auckland,
75 per cent went to Fiordland, Dunedin and Wellington, and roughly two-thirds visited Tauranga and Canterbury.
O’Sullivan said the spend figures for cruise passengers would be available in December and could vary substantially between ports depending on factors such as the weather.
‘‘It depends on the destination and how many times passengers may have been there before.
‘‘We get quite a few repeat cruisers who may be happy to stay on board and read a book.
‘‘In most cases 80 per cent get off and in some places, like Stewart Island, it’s closer to 100 per cent.’’
O’Sullivan said with the arrival of larger vessels passenger numbers were expected to surpass
344,000 over the coming two seasons, contributing an estimated
$640 million to the economy.