| Spotlight on ICCA: Cruise Statistics

Next Monday 30 April the ICCA will be
releasing data on Australian cruise passenger
trends from 2011 and this will be followed by
the release of New Zealand passenger data on
Tuesday 08 May.
For many of you statistics and graphs can be
very boring but when your business includes
(and depends on) a sector of the travel industry
that is showing no signs of slowing down then I
would encourage you to sit up and take notice
of some of the data.
The data we release will look at the number
of cruise passengers from this market, where
they are cruising, when they are cruising and
for how long. In addition to this, some new
data that will be made available from 2011 will
show a breakdown in where cruise passengers
are originating from (by State) and what sort of
booking lead times we are seeing as an
average across all of the ICCA Member Cruise
Lines.
How does all this impact our retail sector?
The answer is a simple one for everyone in
your agency.
Naturally the business owner should be keen
to know if their cruise sales are keeping pace
with the industry benchmark but also
individual consultants can also be measuring
their own performance against these industry
trends.
Lastly we will also take a look at how our
market stacks up against other key source
markets for cruise around the world.
You may think this is not relevant to you but
rest assured – IT IS!!
Most cruise line executives are very quick to
look at the market (or population) penetration
in different countries.
This is the number of cruise passengers
divided by the population.
In 2010 the market penetration for Australia
was 2.1% and for New
Zealand 1%.
This is a very reassuring
indicator that will have a
bearing on marketing
dollars that are spent here
as well as plans for future
deployment of vessels
knowing that the
particular market
continues to grow.