North America may lose its position as the largest source market for the cruise sector by 2020. THE EUROPEAN CRUISE MARKET IS EXPECTED TO overtake the US in less than nine years, according the United Kingdom’s Passenger Shipping Association (PSA). Presented at last week’s Cruise Convention in Southampton, England, PSA’s...
North America may lose its
position as the largest source
market for the cruise sector
by 2020.
THE EUROPEAN CRUISE MARKET IS EXPECTED TO
overtake the US in less than nine years,
according the United Kingdom’s Passenger
Shipping Association (PSA).
Presented at last week’s Cruise Convention
in Southampton, England, PSA’s ‘Cruise
Review 2011’ suggests that if Europe’s
double-digit growth continues over the next
ten years, as it has for the past four, it could
become the world’s largest source market by
2020.
“There is now a genuine
prospect of North America
losing its position as the
largest source market for the
cruise sector.”
A total of 5.45 million Europeans took a
cruise in 2010 – an 11% rise on 2009 and
more than double the 2.67 million
passengers in 2003.
The UK accounted for 1.62 million (6%
growth), Germany 1.22 million (19%
growth), Italy 889,000, Spain 645,000, and
France 387,000.
However, Germany is tipped to knock the
UK off the top spot in Europe by the end of
this decade, due to its bigger economy,
population and proportion of outgoing
tourists.
Italy, France and Spain, all of which saw
between 10 and 12 percent growth last year,
will also forge ahead, PSA predicts, but this is
largely because they had “lagged behind”
the UK for the past two decades.
There is now a “genuine prospect of North
America losing its position as the largest
source market for the cruise sector,” PSA
concluded.
