In 2016, the cruise sector was one of the most performing ones. According to the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) report, the number of cruise tourists has been growing since 2009<\/b>, when 17,8 million people went on a cruise. The number rose up to 25 million people in 2016, allowing the cruise sector to represent about 110 billion euros of the world economic output. The majority of passengers came from the USA (about 12 million), Germany (more than 2 million) which grew by 11% from 2015 to 2016, UK (about 1,9 million) which grew by 5,6% from 2015. In particular, river cruises grew by 11,2% with almost 167.000 passengers, while sea cruises grew by 6,7%. River cruises are one of the fastest growing trends<\/b>. CLIA’s report expects a 7% growth during 2017 in the number of ships which will be designed for this segment. Moreover, the report underlines that travellers will probably keep on preferring offline channels for the booking process.<\/p>\n
Mainly due to security reasons, travellers started to prefer destinations in Northern Europe compared to Mediterranean ones. Also Pacific Asian destinations are growing, registering more than 2 million passengers. Almost 1 million of them is represented by Chinese travellers, one of the most interesting origin markets.<\/p>\n
Beyond river cruises, there is an increasing demand for expedition cruises, usually in the Artic and Antarctic continents. This kind of products meets the growing demand for adventure tourism.<\/p>\n
Also the cruise sector is organising to meet the luxury tourism demand<\/b>, providing authentic and exclusive services, such as starred chefs on board.
\nBritish tourists are particularly interested by this segment. In fact, their demand for luxury cruises grew by 9% from 2015, with almost 30.000 bookings.<\/p>\n
In the Report you can also find about:<\/p>\n
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