| Cruise Pricing

Often misunderstood is the way (and
the reasons why) cruise lines set pricing
for different itineraries.
From a cruise line perspective there are
two primary objectives:
• Fill every cabin
• Achieve the highest price possible
Filling every cabin is potentially more
important to the cruise lines than the
second as they don’t save a significant
amount of money for each cabin that
sails empty.
Empty cabins also don’t generate on
board revenue.
Analysts will try to predict demand by
looking at how similar sailings have been
in the past and they consider current
factors like the state of the economy,
demand from different source markets
and changes in capacity.
Then, they make an educated estimate
(or guess!) as to how high they can price
the various cabin categories to still fill a
particular departure.
Itinerary pricing will generally be higher
over peak times (school holidays and
warmer months in different cruise
regions); when sailing to popular
destinations; when departing from easyto-
reach ports; on newer ships and for
cabin categories with limited availability
such as triples, quads or suites.
Once pricing is released it is a bit of a
waiting game to see how bookings
progress.
If they’ve estimated too low and a
particular sail date is filling up faster than
expected, they will raise the price.
If bookings are
slow, then they
lower prices or
add incentives
such as on board
credits or even
reduced deposits
to try to stimulate
demand.