15.03.10 Seatrade Insider

Cruise demand grows in markets worldwide

Cruise Shipping Miami opened on a strongly positive note with a session on global source markets reporting increased demand in virtually every corner of the world, with further growth predicted.
No wonder Chris Hayman, Seatrade chairman and session moderator, referred to ‘this impressive phenomenon driving the industry forward: globalization.’
In 2009, the UK market grew to 1.53m passengers, a 4% increase, said Passenger Shipping Association director Bill Gibbons, while Germany finally cracked the 1m figure, hitting 1.02m passengers, a 13.2% jump, according to Hamburg-based SeaConsult md Helge Grammerstorf.
Asia as a whole reached an estimated 1m passengers, with about 200,000 coming from China, said Rama Rebbapragada, regional vp international for Royal Caribbean, who cited the same 1m figure for fast-growing Latin America, including the region’s powerhouse source market, Brazil.
Australia and New Zealand together are estimated to have totaled 425,000 passengers last year, according to Ted Blamey, principal of Syndey-based Chart Management Consultants.
All the panelists projected continued growth, including Grammerstorf who made the prediction that the German source market will double to more than 2m ocean-going passengers by 2018.
Gibbons concurred with Carnival Corp. & plc chairman Micky Arison’s recent forecast that the UK market will double, to 3m passengers, by 2020.
Blamey said it’s entirely possible Australia/New Zealand could also double in a decade, which would push those markets to a total of nearly 1m passengers.
It’s tough to project growth rates in Asia and Latin America, since the industry is still trying to get a handle on national statistics in these diverse regions, Rebbapragada told Seatrade Insider.
However, he said both areas of the world hold ‘huge potential.’
Brazil’s cruise association, ABREMAR, is projecting 910,000 passengers, a whopping 60% increase, in the current austral cruise season.
And the newly formed Asia Cruise Association, which Rebbapragada chairs, aims to standardize cruise reporting numbers in coming years.
As all the panelists noted, markets respond to capacity growth, and lines increasingly are sending more berths into emerging regions. Even though few newbuild orders have been placed recently, Grammerstorf pointed out that a hefty number of newbuilds are already in the pipeline. He intrigued the session’s attendees by adding: ‘I’m pretty sure that over the next month we will see a number of orders placed at the European yards for ships of different sizes.’

Source: Seatrade Insider

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