Tag Archives: cruise growth

2016 River cruise Outlook

Posted on by
Reply

by industry sector

In 2016, after several years of inexhaustible growth in the river cruise sector, some of the bigger players are taking a bit of a breather (and by breather, we mean not building as many new ships as in past years), while several newcomers and new products take a fresh stab at the market.

Most notable among the river cruise rookies is Crystal Cruises, which this year announced that it would be entering the river-cruise market with a fleet of five luxury yacht-style river vessels. The first of those will be the Crystal Mozart, formerly a Peter Deilmann vessel known as the Mozart, originally built in 1987. Crystal has four newbuild vessels on order for 2017.

Following an extensive renovation, the Crystal Mozart will set sail on July 13, offering passengers their first glimpse of Crystal’s vision of river cruising. That will mean fewer, larger suites after the company transforms the 203-passenger Mozart to a 160-passenger capacity.

The updated Crystal Mozart will feature suites ranging in size from 203 square feet to the 860-square-foot, two-bedroom Crystal Suites, the largest on any river.

Crystal also is designing its itineraries so that much of the sailing takes place during the day, giving guests the opportunity to explore destinations in the evening, with ships docked in port overnight.

It will be interesting to see how this nighttime-focused river cruise experience will resonate with river cruisers. According to Crystal, one big advantage will be fewer crowds in port, something that has become a bit of a challenge in Europe. Crystal has said it also plans to  get passengers off ship as much as possible while docked, with onshore culinary experiences at Michelin-starred restaurants, evening events and entertainment.

Bring the kiddies

While Crystal will be making a run to convert the high-end, ocean-cruise customer to rivers, another new entrant into the river-cruise market, Adventures by Disney, will be attempting to get more families to sail the Danube.
Adventures by Disney announced a partnership with AmaWaterways to develop a series of family-friendly cruises aboard the 158-passenger AmaStella in 2016.

To better accommodate families, the AmaStella will usher in several new hardware concepts for AmaWaterways, including 12 staterooms that can accommodate up to three family members each; six sets of adjoining cabins connected via an internal doorway, accommodating families of up to five; and four suites with convertible sofa beds that can accommodate families of up to four.

While courting families isn’t entirely new for river cruising (companies like Tauck and Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection have been doing it for years), actually designing a ship around the needs of families is new. And Disney will be taking the family-friendly concept a step further, for example, by having eight Adventures by Disney guides on each of its sailings in addition to the existing AmaWaterways crew.

The Adventures by Disney sailings will also feature movies, karaoke and daily biking trips for younger passengers, as well as family-friendly excursions such as a horse show at the Lazar Equestrian Park in Hungary and a private marionette performance and strudel-making demonstration at the Schonbrunn Palace in Austria.

Other river-cruise newbies are looking to introduce demographics into the arena as well, including Canadian tour operator G Adventures, which is hoping to get millennials onboard. G Adventures is introducing river cruises on the Mekong and Ganges rivers and on the canals of France’s Burgundy region in 2016, in addition to its existing Peruvian Amazon cruises. The line’s goal is to make what has traditionally been a higher-end travel product more accessible to younger, less- affluent clients.

Exotic river lust

Uniworld’s much-anticipated Ganges River program in India officially sets sail in January, when the company begins chartering Haimark’s new luxury cruiser, the 56-passenger Ganges Voyager II. Uniworld’s new Ganges program promises to bring luxury amenities and services to India’s most notorious inland water route, which is quickly becoming the next river- cruising hot spot.

Exotic river buffs will be happy to note that next year will also see continued development in Southeast Asia, where Pandaw River Expeditions is launching new and uncharted river routes, the latest being a 2016 sailing that travels the length of the Mekong River all the way from Thailand through Myanmar and Laos and into China, the first time the company will be offering a sailing that goes into China.

Scenic and Emerald Waterways also are adding capacity on the popular Mekong River in Vietnam and Cambodia next year.

Ongoing growth in Europe, U.S.

It wouldn’t be river cruising if there were not a continued influx of ships on next year’s agenda, namely on the always-popular European streams. The world’s largest river-cruise line, Viking River Cruises, will add six newbuilds, for a total of 52 ships in five years. Amawaterways, Avalon Waterways, Tauck and Scenic are each christening two new vessels in Europe next year, and four-star tenderfoot Emerald Waterways is adding a fifth ship in Europe.

French river-cruise line CroisiEurope is celebrating 40 years in business next year as it continues to make more noise in the U.S. market with updated ships meant to meet U.S. standards, and the company will unveil its second European paddlewheeler (a unique concept for sailing shallower waters) on the Elbe River in spring.

Another paddlewheeler, American Cruise Lines’ newest U.S.-based vessel, will launch in early 2016, marking the third Mississippi paddlewheeler that the line has built from the ground up. It joins the American Eagle, which launched in April, and the Queen of the Mississippi, which set sail in 2012.

UBS Sees Conservative Growth in Cruise Capacity

Posted on by
Reply

UBS Sees Conservative Growth in Cruise Capacity

Findings are based on scheduled delivery of new ships during the upcoming yearsBy: Marilyn Green

Cruise
Viking Ocean has newbuilds scheduled for 2015 and 2016, with the potential for additional orders. // © 2013 Viking Cruises

Viking Ocean has newbuilds scheduled for 2015 and 2016, with the potential for additional orders. // © 2013 Viking Cruises

UBS Investment Research periodically publishes an evaluation of cruise capacity and where it is headed. In its current study, UBS said Carnival Corporation may be in discussions with shipbuilders for another Seabourn order, which could be announced before the end of 2013. The new ship is likely planned for 2017, as the analysts think Carnival is finished ordering for 2016, with three orders currently in place. In addition, Royal Caribbean International has an option that expires in December for a fourth Oasis-class order scheduled for mid-2018 delivery — another possible order that could be announced later this year.

UBS expects 3-4 percent compound annual capacity growth in North America for the period of 2012-2016, which is below the 10-year average between 2003 and 2012, which came in at just under 6 percent. Analysts are predicting about three percent average growth in 2013 and 2014, as all ordering for those years is now completed, and further withdrawals of existing ships are likely to be announced later.

Analyst Robin Farley pointed out that Carnival Corporation has reiterated its intention of scheduling delivery of two to three ships per year and has only two ships on order for delivery in each 2014 and 2015. Royal Caribbean had been maintaining capital spending discipline, with one ship on order for delivery in 2014 and one in 2015, and no ships scheduled to be delivered for 2013.

Meanwhile, Norwegian Cruise Line exercised its option for a second Breakaway Plus ship for spring 2017 delivery — the line has the first Breakaway Plus order scheduled for October 2015. The two 4,200-berth vessels will be the largest in Norwegian’s fleet.

Another summer announcement came from Prestige Cruise Holdings, which announced in early July that the company has put in an order for a new 738-passenger all-suite, all-balcony ship for Regent Seven Seas. This will be the largest vessel in the fleet, driving close to 40 percent growth in capacity. Named Seven Seas Explorer, it is scheduled for delivery in summer 2016.

UBS notes that Viking Ocean Cruises has been in discussions for additional orders we may see later this year, related to the December 2012 Memorandum of Agreement with Fincantieri for the construction of two more ocean cruise vessels with an option for another two. Neither the shipyard nor Viking has announced an exact delivery date for the additional newbuild orders at this time, but UBS predicts the timing to be the end of 2016 and the end of 2017. Viking Ocean already has newbuilds scheduled to debut in May 2015 and early 2016.

100 years of Florida cruising

Posted on by
Reply

100 years of Florida cruising

By Tom Stieghorst

*InsightCan it be 100 years since the first cruise from Florida?

Yes it can, according to The Cruise People, a London travel firm that has identified the Key West steamship Evangeline as the first true cruise ship to depart a Florida port in 1913.

With its prominent, upright funnel and boxy profile, the 3,678-ton Evangeline resembled nothing so much as a smaller version of the Titanic, lost in the icy North Atlantic nine months earlier.

That same year, 1912, Henry Flagler’s ambitious extension of the Florida East Coast Railway to Key West was completed. Then, as now, leisure cruises depended on land-based transportation links to prosper.*TomStieghorst

But in 1913 railroads, not airlines, brought distant tourists to the departure terminal. The Evangeline was owned by the Peninsular & Occidental Steamship Co, a joint venture between Flagler and his Florida railroad rival Henry Plant (P&O eventually went on to own a modern cruise subsidiary, today’s Princess Cruises). The ship was built in Scotland, at the same shipyard that later built the former Carnival Cruise Lines ship Carnivale.

The Evangeline did a series of eight 11-night cruises, visiting Havana, Kingston, Jamaica, and Colon, Panama, to see the canal, then still under construction.

The fare for the initial season was $110, but that went up to $125 in 1914 when the homeport moved to Jacksonville, Fla.

Today Jacksonville is still a homeport, hosting the 70,367-ton Carnival Fascination. Key West, which will serve as port of call for nearly 300 cruise ships this year, is no longer a home port, its rail connection wiped out by the 1935 hurricane.

Miami, which didn’t receive a regular leisure cruise route until 1935 when ships began going to Nassau, Bahamas, is now the biggest cruise port, not only in Florida but worldwide. Port Everglades and Port Canaveral are second and third. Each is connected to an international airport (in the case of Port Canaveral, buses take passengers from Orlando International Airport).

And now, as then, Florida remains central to the cruise business. The industry’s biggest convention, Cruise Shipping Miami, will open next week at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

According to CLIA, Florida accounted for 40% of the industry’s passenger and crew visits in North America and 35% of direct expenditures.  No. 2 California had about one-tenth as many passenger visits, CLIA says.

The Evangeline was scrapped in 1936, succeeded by the Florida, which by 1952 was doing two-night cruises from Miami to Havana for $42 plus taxes. That all ended eight years later. And for the past half century the cruise industry has prospered in Florida, going almost everywhere but the port of call 90 miles to the south.