Compiled by Akash Sinha
Cruise liners have been providing pleasure voyages to tourists since decades. Various cruise liner companies provide the best luxurious experiences to tourists, amidst the vast stretches of water. Cruise liner companies all over the world share a significant and a vast portion in the travel and tourism market altogether.
The Carnival Corporation shares almost half of the total market share, owning numerous cruising companies like AIDA, Carnival, Costa, Cunard, Holland America Line, Ibero Cruceros and P&O Cruises Australia. Other cruise liner companies like Royal Caribbean International (RCI), Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), Star Cruises and MSC follow up to hold their dominant positions in the market.
Disney Cruise Lines, TUI Group, Prestige Cruise Holding, All Leisure Group and Others comprise of the remaining 12.19% of the market share.
In 2016, the Global Cruise Industry Deployment Market Share showed that the Caribbean region had the largest share (33.7%). The European region, excluding the Mediterranean region having 2nd position in market share (18.7%), had 11.7% of the share, being the 3rd highest in the world. Asia (9.2%), Australasia, New Zealand & Pacific (6.1%), Alaska (4.1%) and South America (2.7%) follow up the list. Rest of the cruise lines over all other regions of the world share the remaining 13.8% of the Industry Deployment Market Share.
The cruise liner companies along the Asia-Pacific region have shown their rapid growth in market capacity over the last years. From low figures in 2008 (6.7%) and lowest in 2011 (5.8%), the curve has increased since 2012 (6.0%) and has been increasing all its way to 13.5% in 2016.
Cruise Liners attract a lot of tourists and the majority of the passengers are from the USA (51%), taking half of the total figures, followed by Germany (8%), UK (7%), Australia (4%), Canada (4%), Italy (4%), China (3%), France (3%), Spain (2%) and Norway (1%). The rest 13% is covered up by the remaining nations of the world. The demand for cruising has increased by a remarkable figure of 68% in the last ten years.
USA boasts being at the top, with 11.21 million people of its population love cruising, followed by Germany with 1.77 million cruisers, UK with 1.61 million passengers and Australia with 1 million leisure voyagers. Italy (840,000), Canada (800,000) and China (700,000) close to the million’s league, with France (590,000) and Spain (450,000) closing in. Norway alone provides 180,000 people of its population as passengers for cruise liners, where the rest of remaining world sum up to the remaining 2.84 million passengers.
With the increasing demand, cruise liners companies have introduced new cruising ships and always keeping them ready in their arsenal for the tourists.
The Seabourn Cruiseline model introduced in October 2016 has the lowest passenger carrying capacity of 225 passengers at a time, whereas the Royal Caribbean International’s Oasis III has the record breaking highest carrying capacity of 5,400 passengers. Other cruise ships with the passenger carrying capacity are shown in Graph 6, below.
Using the data from the current cruise liners scenario, it can be predicted that by 2022, it would make a great impact in travel and tourism industry all over the world. Companies like the Carnival Corporation, Royal Caribbean International Cruises, MSC Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Lines would hold their dominant positions and shares ion the market as shown in the concluding graph below.
