NZ cruising’s big splash

MORE Kiwis cruised in 2016 than any other year, the latest Cruise Lines Int’l Association (CLIA) Australasia statistics show.

The Cruise Industry Source Market Report New Zealand 2016 released yesterday ( CW breaking news) saw ocean cruise passengers grow by 36% to 90,184, compared to Australia’s 21% growth in 2016 to 1,281,159 passengers ( CW 16 May).

CLIA managing director Australasia Joel Katz told Cruise Weekly “as a relatively small and emerging market, NZ is certainly punching above its weight”.

Katz said the increase in home port options and short close-tohome cruises was reflected in the source market pax growth.

“As cruise lines continue to deploy and homeport new ships in this region, we can expect to see the NZ numbers continue to grow and we are well on track to achieve the goal of 100,000 NZ ocean cruise pax by 2020,” he said.

Similar to Australian figures, the most popular cruise duration was 8-14 days, with more than half of New Zealanders opting for this length, while voyages of 1-4 days surged 142% to become the second most popular duration.

In 2016, New Zealand cruise passengers spent 871,952 days at sea, up 29% from 2015 and a 187% increase in five years.

The average length of a cruise holiday in 2016 was 9.7 days, down from 10.2 days in 2015.