By
Sean Dudley |
This article was first published in Itinerary Planning Special Report 2015
The cruise business is booming in Australasia and south-east Asia, as passenger numbers for 2014 indicate. For the first time, Australian cruise industry figures confirmed more than a million Australians took a cruise locally and internationally in 2014, a figure that was initially earmarked as a target to be reached by 2020.
The market has seen 12 consecutive years of growth, with an increase of 20.4% in Australian passenger numbers reported for 2014.
As a major player in the region, Carnival Australia has played a vital part in helping the cruise industry become the fastest growing and most dynamic Australian tourism sector.
According to Carnival’s Sandy Olsen: “Australians have responded to the offer of more itineraries, more destinations and more ships on offer across a wide variety of cruise lines.”
Carnival Australia is the arm of Carnival Corporation in Australia, the south Pacific region and south-east Asia, accounting for seven of the company’s ten brands.
“P&O Cruises Australia, Princess Cruises and Carnival Australia currently have seven ships between them, based year round in Australia, with Princess Cruises and Carnival Cruise Line also adding more seasonal deployments,” explains Olsen. “Cunard Line, Seabourn Cruise Line, P&O Cruises World Cruising and Holland America Line (HAL) all have seasonal or visiting deployments.”
P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises and Carnival Australia are all offering a number of new cruises for winter 2015 and spring 2016. As a company, Olsen says that Carnival Australia is leading the way in providing the opportunity to visit more regional, coastal and Pacific Island destinations.
“We have opened more than 30 Australian, New Zealand, Pacific Island and south-east Asian ports in five years,” she says.
The growth in the region is also reflected by the number of cruise ships from Carnival Australia fleets that will be in Australian waters between October 2015 and April 2016.
P&O Cruises will have five ships homeported in Australia from 25 November following the arrival of the Pacific Aria and Pacific Eden vessels. Princess Cruises will also have five ships homeported in Australia once Golden Princess arrives in October 2015, while Carnival Cruise Line and HAL will both have two ships homeported in the country. All in all, Carnival Australia will have a total of 14 vessels homeported in Australia during the summer cruise season.
“On top of the 14 homeported full time and seasonally deployed ships, there will be a further eight visitors to our shores over the season: Cunard’s three Queens; P&O Cruises World Cruising Aurora and Arcadia; Princess Cruises’ Pacific Princess; Seabourn Odyssey and HAL’s Amsterdam,” Olsen says.
With 250 cruises on offer in the 2015-16 programme, P&O Cruises will be sailing into new waters, offering a host of maiden itineraries and inaugural port visits to exotic destinations. These include Honiara in the Solomon Islands, Jakarta in Indonesia, and Ko Chang in Thailand, as well as local gems like Queensland’s Hamilton Island and Gladstone, Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula and Esperance in Western Australia.