It’s official! Australia had the biggest growth in passengers last year AND the highest percentage of the population took a cruise. Who are they and where did they go?
You’ve all been counted! More than 833,000 Aussies cruised last year. Let’s take a closer look at the stats…
State of origin
NSW (342,507 passengers) thrashed Queensland (195,003) but in terms of percentages, it was a close call (4.6% versus 4.2%). The “propensity to cruise” winner was the tiny, landlocked ACT, with the equivalent of 5.4% of the population taking a cruise in 2013.
Battle of the ages
Cruisers are not as old as people think.
Almost half of Australian passengers were younger than 50, while 27.5% were under 40.
20% were 50-60.
11% were 61-65
10% were 66-70.
13% were over 70.
Early bird vs last minute
Most travellers (43%) booked their cruises 6-12 months in advance.
28% booked 3-6 months ahead.
18% left it until 90 days out.
Almost 10% were organised more than a year before departure.
Top 5 ocean destinations
So, where did we go? No prizes for guessing this one, but the top hot spot is still growing – up 31% on 2012.
1. South Pacific: 330,670 Australians (40% of the market)
2. Within Australia: 148,527 (18% of the market)
3. New Zealand: 98,914
4. Mediterranean: 57,690
5. Asia: 44,382
6. Alaska: 21,121
7. Other Americas: 20,612
8. Northern Europe: 19,618
9. Caribbean: 19,054
10 World voyage: 13,615
What about river cruising?
The top 5 should probably have Europe’s rivers in the fifth spot, because 41,800 Australians took a European river cruise in 2013.
In Asia, river cruising attracted 4,511 Australians.
River cruising is now the holiday choice for 6% of Australian cruisers – passenger numbers are up 25%. That’s even better growth than the ocean cruising.
Cruising longer
Another win for rivers!
Average river cruise length: 14.4 days.
Average ocean cruise length: 10.5 days.
The number of passengers taking cruises of 8-14 days jumped by more than 120,000 to almost half a million.
Next most popular duration was 5-7 days.
Total days
In 2013, Australians cruised for a combined 8.7 million days = 1.6 million more days than the previous year. Wow!
For more details, see www.cruising.org.au.