| Booking window soaring

AN American financial analyst has found that the booking window for cruises has soared to an all-time record of 365 days, up from 210 days a year ago.

A research report by C. Patrick Scholes from Truist Securities (pictured) released earlier this month highlighted the trend, as reported by The Points Guy.

Despite having traditionally been booked much further in advance than other sorts of travel, an average booking window of a full year away is “unprecedented”, Scholes suggested.

The analyst credits the widening booking window in part to strong pent-up demand for cruises, showing those who missed their trips last year have mostly given up on 2021, and are now looking ahead to 2022 and beyond, snapping up heavily discounted and incentivised staterooms with masses of enthusiasm.

Truist Securities data shows the pace of next year’s bookings for all types of cruises is 30% to 35% ahead of where it normally would be at this stage in the booking cycle, with even greater discrepancies in some destinations.

Scholes said bookings for next year’s Alaska and Europe sailings – typically on the more expensive side – are up around 100% against where they normally would be at this point in the booking cycle.

By contrast, bookings for next year’s cheaper Caribbean sailings are relatively flat, up only 5% compared to previous years.

Scholes attributed this to older travellers, who are the target of this higher-end product, which is typically booked further in advance to begin with.

The demand has prompted several cruise lines, such as Oceania Cruises, which recently recorded its highest-volume booking day of all time (CW 12 Mar), to open their 2023 and even 2024 sailings for bookings sooner than originally planned.