by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 7:00 AM ET, Fri August 18, 2023
Cruises are in high demand this year, leading to more sales for travel advisors and a growth across cruise brands — leading to a wave of interest that didn’t just peak at Wave Season, but has continued all year long.
Host agency InteleTravel saw a 124 percent increase in premium and luxury cruise sales this year when compared to 2022 year-end sales. Holland America Line recorded its highest booking day in its 150-year history on July 11. And recent data shows that a record number of people — at 31.5 million — will cruise this year alone.
Cruise Hive has seen Internet searches for cruising increase 15 percent this summer.
With all of this popularity, some cruise lines have been booking higher than 100 percent capacity, some doing even better than in 2019.
Noreen Kompanik, who recently traveled with her husband on an AmaWaterways river cruise and wrote about it for TravelPulse, noted how many more travelers she met who were taking a river cruise for the first time.
There were several reasons she identified for this trend, but a large reason was the pandemic and the mentality of, “It’s now or never.”
“Travelers know full well the dangers of putting off trips that they can and should take ‘now.’” She wrote. “Health issues or the loss of family members and friends taught us all one thing. If you put it off until tomorrow, that tomorrow might never come.”
John Frazier, Owner of Polaris Travel Experts, has seen an increase in group bookings as more people seek to reconnect through travel: “We are seeing more previous cruisers coming back who were sitting out due to Covid… We are also seeing more people traveling together. There are a lot more multi-cabin bookings than we had previously.”
The popularity and interest in cruising comes as bucket-list destinations across Europe and the wider world seek to curb large cruise tourism. These destinations, such as Amsterdam and Barcelona, see thousands of cruisers descending upon them each day during their respective cruising seasons.
Will this wave of newfound popularity in cruising continue into 2024? Accroding to recent data, yes! A new Cruiseline.com and ShipMate survey asked 5,000 travelers if they were going to be cruising in 2024 — and 98.8 percent said yes!
While growth in cruising is likely to follow the end of 2023, the industry is also expected to continue to change as the demographics of cruisers and the sustainability efforts of both destinations and cruise lines evolve.
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