Page 15 - 2020 European River Cruise Market Report

This was an expectation from ocean cruise
guests. People want balconies. So we had a
big internal debate: Do we want balconies?
We really talked a long time, looked at
guests, looked at use of space.

to offer specific total passenger
numbers but did say the line was
seeing strong bookings because of
itinerary and excursion innovations.

Your Way Avalon ships are English speak- The Avalon Looking out from a stateroom
ing and primarily source passengers Visionary
Like the pseudo-balconies, cus- from the United States, Canada, navigates the to have a river cruise as part of a
tomer demand has also led to Ava- Australia, New Zealand, the UK Danube. bigger trip. These shorter itinerar-
lon launching three distinct types and India, in that order, she said. ies have a lot of appeal for various
of shore excursions. The Classic reasons.”
option includes expert-guided Growth
walking tours and bus rides Like other riverboat lines, Ava-
through a destination’s tradi- Avalon has no immediate plans lon is interested in sailing the Dou-
tional tourism sites. The Dis- for newbuilds after the Avalon ro River, where guest demand, as
covery option is more hands on, or View, Hoffee said, but is always well as competition, is on the rise.
subject matter intensive: painting, expanding its partnerships with
cooking, music. The Active option fellow subsidiaries of its 91-year- The line is also actively looking
is for those who’d rather hike, bike, old parent company, Globus, for into a return to Egypt.
or canoe than motor coach. pre- and post-cruise add ons
“We had Egypt before every-
Avalon also replaced some of its “There are a lot of people in thing happened there and we’d love
longer itineraries – some 15 days – markets where they have that to bring it back. We love the Nile
in favor of shorter three-, four- and much time and others who don’t. and cruising on the Nile,” Hoffee
five-day itineraries. But even in markets where they do said. “There’s certainly pent-up de-
have that much time they may want mand. People haven’t been able to
Shorter cruises with more di- go for a while. It’s something that’s
verse options led to a dramatic very close on our radar. We’re eval-
seven-year average passenger uating it now.” 
age reduction in the line’s typical
60-plus-year-old demographic.

“We saw that with guests we
already had, the demographic we
already had, they were looking for
these kinds of activities. For exam-
ple, we added bikes onboard – that
people take and use on their own.
In certain cities, we would have the
classic walking tours and we’d add
an option to have a hike instead
and half of the guests would do that
instead of the walking tour. Age is
a number. People are interested in
hiking and biking. There’s a very
active demographic coming on our
ships. We looked at that and built
these itineraries,” Hoffee said.

Cruise Industry News: 2020 European River Cruise Market Report 61