One in every 12 foreign package holiday booked in the UK is now a cruise – up from one in every 26 in 1999.

That is just one statistic – and a pretty impressive one – culled from new research into the cruise industry, confirming that almost 1.5 million Brits took a cruise in 2008.

I’m the first to take stats with a bucket of salt, but on this occasion I take on board the findings as they come from two respected industry bodies – the UK’s Passenger Shipping Association and the influential European Cruise Council.

Both paint a pretty positive picture of cruising in general, although both acknowledge that the pace of passenger growth seen in the past five years will slow due to economic conditions.

Having said that, cruise companies across the globe are still awaiting the delivery of many more ships, demonstrating continuing confidence in the sector as more people switch onto cruise holidays.

I am told that ten new cruises ships will be launched this year, and there are a further 29 on order through to 2012.

These include ships dedicated to the UK such as P&O Cruises’ Azura, Cunard Line’s Queen Elizabeth and Celebrity Cruises’ Celebrity Eclipse, all of which are due to enter service in 2010 sailing from Southampton.

The number of cruise ships operating in Europe last year rose by 35% over 2005 to 192, just showing the popularity of voyages in the region. And, listening to cruise line bosses, further expansion in Europe appears to be on the cards.

So where are the most popular destinations? Well, a typical European cruise makes calls at four or more ports on any given itinerary.

Top of the ports were Naples, Civitavecchia (the port for Rome) and Livorno, all in Italy, which handled nearly five million cruise passenger visits last year.

Greece was the second leading destination with nearly 4.3 million cruise passengers. Santorini, Mykonos and Rhodes were the most popular islands.

Italy took 23% total share of cruise business, followed by Greece at 19.6% and Spain with 16.6%, according to the European Cruise Council.

The Mediterranean continues to be the top cruise destination for British passengers and Northern/Western Europe overtook the Caribbean to be second favourite in 2008, according to the PSA’s authoritative Annual Cruise Review.

While Europe steamed ahead, there were losers on the global cruise map.

The biggest fall was a halving in the number of passengers cruising the Red Sea, Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean. But this trend could be reversed with the start of Royal Caribbean International cruising from Dubai from January 2010.

Alaska also dropped in popularity with UK cruise numbers falling for the first time in five years.

The downward trend is forecast to continue this year due to cruise lines cutting capacity on the back of a high passenger tax and “onerous” operating regulations.

The numbers taking Nile cruises rose by 36% to more than 39,000 while river cruises outside Europe also increased by 20%.

But this failed to offset a sharp fall in the number of European river cruises taken.

This meant that the overall UK river cruise passenger total fell by almost nine per cent to 107,000.

On a brighter note, British cruise passengers are opting to holiday for longer with greater numbers using UK departure ports.

The average length of a cruise taken last year increased from 9.7 to 10.4 nights with an 18% rise in the number of cruise nights booked by UK passengers.

And almost a quarter more passengers chose to start their cruise holiday from a UK port last year compared with 2007.

This means that four out of every ten cruises booked departed from a UK port, powered by a series of new ships dedicated to the UK cruise sector.

So how much are we spending to go cruising? Remarkably, more than a third of all cruises cost less than £1,000 and cruise holidays will be even better value this year, the PSA believes.

While the average price of a cruise last year rose by six per cent to £1,409, there were 35% costing under £1,000 and nearly 60% less than £1,500.

Price, destination and previous cruise line experience are the top three reasons for booking a particular cruise, according to the UK Cruise Review.

And that’s the bottom line – the cost of cruising is expected to remain incredibly competitive as new ships enter service and lines go all out to ensure each one is full to capacity on every departure.

It seems that this is one sector of the travel industry that is successfully broadening its appeal through price.

Phil Davies

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