Aussies go cruising in massive numbers

The International Cruise Council of Australasia took the opportunity of taking travel and consumer media and industry leaders on a very pleasant Captain Cook Sydney Harbour Cruise yesterday to announce the results of their latest industry survey, revealing that cruising by Australians is going through the roof.

ICCA chairman John Molinaro [pictured right with ICCA CEO Kinda Halliday, enjoying the breeze on Sydney Harbour aboard Captain Cook’s Sydney 2000] said that cruising had hit all time records in 2006 with more than 220,000 Australians taking a cruise, 18% more than the previous year and double the growth in the USA.

He also revealed that 2006 was the second successive year of 18% growth and that since 2002, the number of Australian cruising had grown by more than 90% and that he also anticipated double digit growth for 2007.

He also said that cruises of eight to fourteen days were the most popular in terms of duration, but confirmed that the duration was influenced by the international offshore cruise taken by Australians in other parts of the world taken and that in Australian waters, shorter cruises of about seven days were becoming increasingly popular with 37% taking cruises of five to seven days, a 10% increase on the previous year.

[Pictured from left: Larissa Kaye of MG Media, Sherlyn Robertson of Captain Cook are all clearly thingking, let’s go cruising!]

Mr Molinaro said that Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific were the most popular with 139,000 Australians or 63% of the total passenger numbers choosing to sail in the region.

He added, “With increasing numbers of cruise ships sailing local and international waters and more and more destinations featuring on the cruise map, hundreds of thousands of Australians are choosing to holiday at sea.”

ICCA represents 21 cruise lines in Australia, with several companies that have vessels that call here and that sell cruises in Australia not being members.  As a result, analysts believe that if all cruise lines that visited Australia and sold cruises in Australia were included, ICCA’s research results could well be doubled.

Report by The Mole