Fred Olsen Travel retail director Paul Hardwick said customers were most commonly enquiring about sailings departing this year. “The biggest proportion of our business is currently for 2024,” he revealed.
“People are not booking so far out now – that would have been different before the pandemic. We would have seen bookings much further ahead. The cruise programme launches are not as strong as they used to be.”
Hardwick added: “Early bookings could potentially come back, but I just don’t think people are booking as far out now. A few are booking for 2025, but the percentage of people booking for 2026 is very small compared with how it used to be.”
Sefton Monk, co-founder of app-based OTA My Kind of Cruise, said: “There’s been a really good uptake for last-minute departures, especially sailings departing within 12 weeks. May has been our best month ever for revenue, passenger sales – everything.”
Ocean World Travel managing director Michele Dance said she felt cruise lines were pushing capacity in the lates market. “There seems to be a few late offers around,” she said.
“Fred Olsen [Cruise Lines] has just launched a new summer lates campaign, while P&O Cruises does a lot of tactical offers – we seem to be doing more with the suppliers we normally do business with.”
Iglu director Dave Mills took a different view, highlighting how strong the earlies market had been.
“There’s not too much capacity [for 2024], and that’s partly because early bookings were really good,” he said. “Lots of people booked early for this year despite there being more ships – we’re not seeing too much discounting.”
’Consistent growth’
Mills said Iglu had also seen an uptick in long-haul fly-cruise demand, with Middle East and Australia sailings performing well, as well as increased demand from the singles market.
"The singles market has been surprisingly good, with lots of people going on a cruise by themselves,” he added.
"Demand is growing more than we have seen in a long time, but there’s not always many single cabins available so that can be a little challenge, but the demand is certainly there.”
Hardwick, meanwhile, praised the sector’s efforts to increase capacity, telling TTG it went hand-in-hand with Fred Olsen Travel’s own expansion plans. “We’re at 20 shops at the moment – I’m looking for consistent growth,” Hardwick continued.
“The plan is to open three shops a year – another two this year and three the next. So I need those cruise lines to continue building new ships and operating new routes because we’re a cruise specialist, and it’s our biggest market.”
