Page 7 - 2020 CIN Expedition Market Report
P. 7
EXPEDITION
MARKET
Market
Hurtigruten is driving capacity with volume; its new ships have capacity for 530 guests.
Sailing between the Poles also means long transit times and out to the end of the decade, a number of smaller yards have
typically less-than-desirable itinerary options for sale. been hungry for business following the demise of the offshore
market.
Some of that has been rectified as cruise operators have
beefed up their shoulder season programs with options like These yards have offered well-priced newbuild deals and
expeditions into the Amazon River or around the British state-backed financing. Some have delivered new ships on
Isles; or even into the Great Lakes. time. Some have not, needing bailouts or delivering vessels
late.
Another trend has been the move to more tropical expe-
ditions – meaning tonnage deployed in the Indian Ocean, Another direct path to the market has been by chartering
South Pacific or the Kimberley, for instance. ships. Tour operators can thus assume less risk and instead
charter a ship for a time period. Their responsibility is
Low Barrier to Entry simply filling the ship, sales and marketing, while all hotel
and marine operations can be outsourced to expert compa-
The glut of new ships have been helped in part by ship- nies.
yards looking for work. While the main cruise-ship building
yards are capacity constrained with orderbooks stretching COVID-19
GLOSSARY: Over the past 50 years, the cruise industry has weath-
ered many storms, but the COVID-19 virus outbreak is
Market Capacity: The total num- unprecedented. As this issue went to press, there were
ber of passengers a ship can carry at some 400 cruise ships in layup and the industry, along
100 percent occupancy during a given
with other modes of international travel, had come to a
time period. standstill.
Berths: Beds, on the average, two in each Cruise lines have responded by suspending their
operations, awaiting the development of the spread of
stateroom. the virus and its impact. At press time, it was hard to
Methodology: Our independent research foresee when the virus will crest and how soon life
will return to normal.
team tracks every sailing on every ship Looking forward, some of the interviews on the
using a variety of tools and methods. We following pages were done before COVID-19 became
a pandemic, others were done after. However, the
do not accept any outside data, and objective was always to take a long-range view, and
take into account cruise lengths, most of the articles are dealing with 2021, 2022 and
drydock periods and more. beyond. ¾
Cruise Industry News: 2020 Expedition Market Report 9
