By Joel Katz, Managing Director, CLIA Australasia
ACROSS our travel agent community, we can all be incredibly proud of the spectacular resurgence we are seeing in the Australian cruise market.
Figures released by CLIA this month show the number of Australians taking cruise holidays has overtaken pre-pandemic levels, proving what we’ve all known for some time – that Australians have a huge appetite for cruising and are heading to sea in huge numbers.
A total of 1.25 million Australians took an ocean cruise in 2023, slightly above the 1.24 million who sailed in 2019.
This means the Australian cruise market is not only back, but it has also come back at a faster pace than most other countries worldwide. It has also powered ahead of many other areas of international travel, which are still approaching their 2019 levels.
New Zealand, too, is experiencing a promising recovery. Even though it was one of the last countries to reopen borders and revive cruise operations, the number of New Zealanders taking cruise holidays has risen to more than 80% of pre-pandemic levels – about 86,300 Kiwis took a cruise last year.
Our travel agent community has been integral to this success. Their hard work through incredibly demanding times has been critical to reviving the local cruise market and getting holidaymakers back to sea.
But although demand for cruising is strong and global projections show continuing growth, success in our region is not guaranteed. Rising costs and regulatory complexities have the potential to impact cruise ship deployment in Australia and New Zealand, which would limit capacity and local passenger numbers.
To maintain our position as a leading destination and meet demand, it’s crucial that regulatory frameworks and port charges remain internationally competitive. Australia and New Zealand need to have the right settings in place to fostering a thriving cruise economy into the future.
