Cruise passenger growth stalls

Port infrastructure constraints means industry set to miss two million passenger target by 2020.

Steve Odell, the outgoing chairman of the Cruise Lines International Association. Picture Renee Nowytarger.

International tourism chiefs blame Sydney’s lack of cruising infrastructure on the drop in cruise market growth which has stalled over the past year.

Ocean cruising growth dropped from a record 21 per cent in 2016 to just 4.4 per cent last year according to the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) figures released yesterday.

Outgoing CLIA chairman Steve Odell and other leading cruise industry figures blamed the lack of port infrastructure on the reduced growth adding that the nation’s cruise industry would not reach its target of hosting two million passengers by 2020 due to capacity constraints.

“We can prove by the numbers that the (lack of) infrastructure is slowing us down,” said Mr Odell, senior vice president and managing director of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Asia Pacific.

“The cruise infrastructure problem shows we have pretty much reached capacity, the warning bells are ringing,” he said. “We have been warning for years that the local industry faces capacity constraints.”

Meanwhile, state and federal governments continue to assess options for a third Sydney port terminal with Botany Bay and several options at Defence’s Garden Island under scrutiny.

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings would bring more ships to the Australian economy if there was more port infrastructure Mr Odell said, adding that the cruise industry is worth $5 billion to the local economy given its benefits to hotels, restaurants, suppliers of food and beverage and transport operators.

“By addressing capacity constraints we will ensure the industry will continue to grow,” he said.

All up, 1.34 million Australians cruised in 2017 with the growth more than two and a half times higher than the rate of Australia’s inbound holiday arrivals growth rate of 1.7 per cent, despite the capacity constraints.

CLIA managing director Joel Katz said 35 per cent of Australian passengers cruise the South Pacific but Asia was the most popular long haul fly cruise destination for Australian cruisers followed by the Mediterranean and Alaska.

Mr Katz said regional economies continued to reap the benefit of the cruise industry with an increase in the number of vessels homeporting outside of Sydney in Brisbane, Melbourne, Fremantle and Adelaide.

“With the popularity of cruising booming in Asia, and specifically China, and regional Asian governments developing berthing facilities for the cruise market, Australia cannot afford to be left behind,” he said.

Around 200,000 international travellers cruise around Australasia annually with 87,000 passengers from the United States and 21,000 from the United Kingdom.

Australia accounted for 5.4 per cent of global cruise passenger numbers in 2017.

Meanwhile, Peregrine Adventures, an adventure cruise company, reported a 35 per cent increase in adventure cruise travellers this year after hitting more than 90 per cent capacity last year.

“The majority of Peregrine’s growth is coming from people aged over 60,” a spokeswoman said.