Local leisure cruising numbers bounce back according to Cruise Lines International Assoc report

Australians are returning to leisure cruising with gusto, as exclusive figures reveal nearly half a million passengers have set sail since the industry resumed last year.

Onda by Scarpetta on Norwegian Spirit. Picture: Christian Santiago Photography

Australians are returning to leisure cruising in unprecedented numbers with exclusive figures revealing that since it resumed mid last year nearly half a million Australians have set sail.

The majority of the 457,200 passengers returning to cruising chose itineraries close to home including domestic, Pacific and New Zealand voyages. But just over 10 per cent of Australians opted for the far flung leisure ports of the Mediterranean and North America. All up, the number of Australian passengers returning to cruising equates to 90 per cent of the passengers recorded during the same pre-Covid-19 level in 2019.

“All the indicators suggest Australia’s cruise recovery is progressing faster than other parts of the world where operations resumed much earlier,” said Cruise Lines International Association chairman Ben Angell, vice president and managing director for NCL in Asia Pacific.

Mr Angell noted that by the end of summer this year Australia had welcomed more than 40 international vessels to local waters.

“By next summer we expect to welcome around 60 international cruise ships to local waters, which is similar to 2019 levels.”

CLIA Managing Director Australasia Joel Katz said cruising initially returned to Australia in a very limited form and relatively recently, but the response from cruise fans have been terrific.

“We estimate that by the last quarter of the year passenger numbers had reached approximately 90 per cent of the levels seen in the same quarter of 2019,” he said. The reopening of Australia’s international borders in February 2022 allowed an initial opportunity for travellers to visit other countries to cruise, but it wasn’t until the end of May 2022 that passengers began sailing from Australia’s east coast, in addition to the Kimberley region. This was followed by the first cruises in New Zealand in August 2022, and by other South Pacific destinations soon after.”

Australian cruisers showed a clear preference for local sailings in 2022, with 90 per cent choosing to cruise in our region, up from about 75-80 per cent in past years.

Meanwhile, Mr Angell said cruising’s revival had continued to gather pace into 2023 and he expects cruise passenger volumes to return to pre-pandemic levels by the end of

this year.

“In a recent CLIA survey, 81 per cent of Australian cruisers said they will cruise again, which is back at similar levels to 2019. Travel agents are reporting strong demand for cruises well into the future and the Australian cruise industry is on track to catch up to the rest of

the world quite swiftly,” Mr Angell said.

The CLIA survey found cruise passengers from NSW made up the bulk of passengers, some 55 per cent, followed by Queenslanders 25 per cent, Victorians 10 per cent, and South and West Australians making up 3 per cent per state.

Australia’s last full year of cruise operations was in 2019 when 1.24 million Australians took an ocean cruise. The industry’s total annual economic value to the Australian economy was $5.2 billion in 2018-19.