Forget Ocean and River Cruises: The Expedition Boom Is Next

At a time when ocean cruise ships and riverboats are coming online at a staggering pace, the next big thing looks to be adventure and expedition cruising. Already, brands ranging from Silversea Expeditions to UnCruise Adventures are leading the charge, but the market is set to become much busier in the years ahead.

After all, among the expedition ships either on order or under construction are four from Ponant, three from Crystal Cruises, two from Hurtigruten, two from Hapag-Lloyd Cruises, one from Scenic, one from Oceanwide Expeditions, one from Norwegian Cruise Company and one from an undisclosed company.

Not to be confused with Norwegian Cruise Line, Norwegian Cruise Company is a new start-up which is planning on entering the market with a polar-class 180-guest ship in 2019, according to Cruise Industry News. It sets out for the vessel to be an ultra-luxury expedition ship in line with those coming from Crystal Cruises and Scenic. It will feature 90 suites starting at around 385 square feet in size. The brand is poised to build up to six ships by 2020.

READ MORE: Crystal Cruises Announces New Megayacht Dubbed Crystal Endeavor

Plus, another Cruise Industry News report briefly outlines the singular undisclosed order placed with Vard, a Fincantieri company. A letter of intent has been signed for the part Norwegian-, part Romanian-built luxury vessel sized to accommodate 220 passengers, also by 2019.

In the previous report, Ulf Henrick Wynnsdale, CEO of Norwegian Cruise Company was quoted as saying, “The research we have seen in the market points toward smaller ships. It will be a more adventurous product, and at the same time, the ultra-luxury part of that segment doesn’t have a lot of capacity.”

However, Silversea Expeditions currently operates three existing vessels, albeit with passenger complements between only 100 and 130, but that will increase when it relaunches the Silver Cloud as a 260-guest expedition ship. The question is really what the luxury expedition market will look like as the brand new 200-guest Crystal Endeavor, now in 2019, and 228-guest Scenic Eclipse in 2018 come out with many more to follow.

READ MORE: Silversea Strengthening Silver Cloud Cruise Ship for Polar Exploration

Considerably larger in size will be Hurtigruten’s 600-passenger hybrid-electric ships beginning to launch in 2018 as well, but they are not deemed to be as luxurious, putting them more in line with aforementioned UnCruise Adventures. The challenge, whether casually or luxuriously, will be for companies with predominantly older ships to compete with the newer hardware.

Per its name, UnCruise stands apart from the mainstream industry, but will it feel the pressure to build new ships for itself or continue to rely on the existing fleet? The same question holds relevant for Silversea as well. Mass competition has been relatively quiet for both for some time, but that’s soon going to change as lots more choices begin to emerge for travelers to book across a full spectrum of price points.

As it looks now, the expedition cruise market is set to expand much as the river cruise one has in recent years. There, Viking River Cruises has emerged as the most ubiquitous with others dividing the remaining space. It’s possible that one expedition company will similarly rocket to the top, but at least adventure vessels can cover the entire globe of oceans and are not limited to local rivers. That will at least allow for a wider net to be cast with passenger counts able to be distributed more evenly.

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