If any travel industry could take a breather, it would be the cruise industry.
Yet, despite incredible growth and remarkable success, cruise leaders seem prepared to chart a brand-new course into an even bigger 2018 and beyond.
The State of the Global Cruise Industry serves as the keynote for the Seatrade Cruise Global Convention. Bringing together a who's who of the cruise world, the event takes the temperature of and showcase the incredible growth of an industry that has taken such a prominent role in the overall travel community.
"The industry is growing at its fastest pace ever," said Andrew Williams, general manager of Seatrade, as he opened the conference.
Providing context for that statement, Cindy D'Aoust, president and CEO of CLIA, pointed out that the cruise industry has 27 million passengers and is growing, supporting $126 billion in economic output and 1 million jobs.
D'Aoust underscored the industry's "tremendous feeling of optimism," but went right into a discourse on CLIA's goals to use 2018 to forge partnerships not only to make the cruise industry more successful but also to tackle the issues facing it.
Moderating the keynote panel, Peter Greenberg, CBS News travel editor, began by highlighting all of the potential challenges and opportunities that will affect the cruise industry in the coming year. He then introduced the cruise world luminaries who would lead a discussion on tackling those challenges and meeting those opportunities head-on.
Part 1 keynote speakers included Frank J. Del Rio, president and CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd.; Arnold W. Donald, president and CEO, Carnival Corp. & PLC and CLIA's global chair; Richard D. Fain, chairman and CEO, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.; and Pierfrancesco Vago, executive chairman, MSC Cruises.
In the second part of the keynote, the assembled cruise world heard from the heads of two new luxury cruise entrants - Tom McAlpin, president and CEO of Virgin Voyages and Douglas Prothero, CEO of The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection.
Following updates on big headlines for the industry in previous years, Del Rio answered a question on 2018's biggest challenge, saying, "Business is really strong. If this was Christmas, and you were Santa Claus, I wouldn't ask for anything."
Later, Del Rio said that he is "very bullish" on the long-term projections of his company, but that the things that keep him up at night are the short-term "body punches" that can affect his company which he can't control.
Some of those challenges include sustainability and overtourism as well as attracting millennial passengers.
Touching on those challenges, D'Aoust noted cruise ships are more efficient, effective, mindful than land-based resorts…" and that "our do-more-with-less mindset has resulted in a much smaller footprint.
The executives continued, stressing that even though cruises aren't the problem, they very much can be the solution.
"I think overtourism is a misnomer because what we're really talking about is sustainable tourism. It's not a numbers game," Fain said, highlighting ways that Royal Caribbean is working on better-educating tourists and spreading them out in order to create a more sustainable model.
He used a new port in Jamaica as leading to more people, less density but also "more activities, more memories."
Meanwhile, Donald and Vago highlighted a meeting with the mayor of Dubrovnik, Croatia, who called cruise companies together due to issues of overcrowding, which had led UNESCO to consider de-listing the old city.
Much like in Jamaica, Vago pointed out how controlling the flow of passengers into that city - even though cruise is a small portion of the problem in Dubrovnik overall - led to solutions in the city.
It is within the cruise industry's purview to create solutions for more sustainable tourism models. As both Fain and Donald noted, these "cities on the sea" tend to be the seen as a much bigger problem than the numbers actually bear out.
However, D'Aoust pointed to World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) numbers which project 600 million more tourists by 2030. With the cruise industry looking to co-opt a bigger piece of that new pie, it's actually good business to find ways to protect the model for the years to come.
"Our guests don't want to go to a place that's overcrowded," said Donald. "It's in our self-interest to make any place we touch better than when we touched it."
A big reason that the cruise industry is growing so exponentially is that of the millennial passenger. Though sustainability is a big issue for millennials, as Del Rio pointed out, they also care about the things that cruising already provides.
"They want exactly what the cruise line offers," Del Rio said. "They want value, they want experiences, they want diversity. We're taking advantage of it."
Another big piece of the growth in cruising is disrupters in the market like Ritz-Carlton and Virgin Voyages. While the biggest companies earlier in the panel all spoke to listening to their customers and providing what they want, these two companies have entire business models focused on niche portions of the market yearning for the exact kind of disruption they're providing.
"Traditional cruisers who are used to the traditional experience may not like our product," McAlpin said, but both he and Prothero pointed out the benefits from marketing to a specific type of customer that becomes uniquely enamored with a product designed just for them.
"We're not resting on our laurels," Fain said, in a statement that seemed to provide a mission statement not only for the speakers but for the entire event.
Cruise has been leading the way in the travel industry for some time. At Seatrade 2018, it seems as if those numbers are just a prologue to what the industry could be in the coming years as the major players continue to refine what they do while new players enter the space providing even more competition and access.
The state of the cruise industry is very strong indeed - both now, and moving forward.
In 2019, Seatrade will return to Miami Beach after a three-year stint in Fort Lauderdale.
Follow along at TravelPulse for all the news and notes to come out of Seatrade Cruise Global 2018.
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