South American ship deployment is up for the coming season, boosting capacity by more than 36 percent over last year, according to the 2017-2018 Cruise Industry News Annual Report.

Driven by MSC Cruises, which is increasing its estimated passenger capacity to 190,150 from 139,052 last year, the overall market capacity for the 2017-2018 season will be 475,082 passengers, up from 358,325 for the 2016-2017 season.

While rebounding, the coming season is still down from the 2015-2016 season, which posted 573,542 passengers, and the all time high of 903,443 passengers for the 2011-2012 season.

The South American market had been on a strong growth track since 1992 until the market started to shrink in 2012.