The rich get richer

The Sunday Times Rich List proclaimed recently that the rich are getting richer, and the Passenger Shipping Association have verified it with their latest stats. Luxury cruising is booming, and that's a fact. 2009 luxury cruise sales i.e. the likes of Crystal Cruises, Sea Dream Yacht Club, Yachts of Seabourne, Regent Seven Seas and Silversea Cruises grew by just over 50% from the previous year. In the UK, over 30,000 customers paid over £5000 per person for a luxury cruise. I'm off to take a look at an Azamara ship next week. Can't wait!

1 in 10

Are you a 1 in 10? UB40 the reggae-pop band recorded a big hit in the eighties called One in Ten, referring to the ratio of unemployed people, but I'm not writing about that, I'm on about the 1 on 10 holidays which were cruise holidays booked last year. The latest Annual Cruise Review from the PSA (Passenger Shipping Association) claims that 1.53 million Brits went on a cruise holiday in 2009 which equates to 1 out of every 10 package holidays taken. The PSA also predict that this figure will rise to 1.65 million this year. Make no doubt about it. Cruising is in vogue.

Three Lions and all that

A revamped version of the only decent football song ever recorded "Three Lions" by Skinner and Baddiel has just been released with a celeb touch to it with contributions from football mad Robbie Williams and bad boy Russell Brand. This can signal only one thing - The Wold Cup is coming, but I very much doubt it will be "coming home". For those wishing to cruise and booze and take in the England games at the same time, then head for Island, Thomson, Ocean Village, P&O, or Cunard. For those looking for a wider choice of matches, NCL are featuring all European country's matches and those who don't want to miss out on anything, RCCL have the lot! Those who want to avoid World Cup fever, Fred Olsen is your saviour who are promising to show none of the games. Now if Fabio Capello wanted to take a cruise, which line do you think he's choose?

Cruise prices fall to below 2007 levels

The Passenger Shipping Association which is the recognised authority on the UK cruise sector yesterday issued statistics that showed that the average price of a cruise in 2009 fell to levels below 2007. In 2009 the average price of a cruise holiday was £1330 which was a 6% drop on the previous year. However the average length (number of days) of a cruise in 2009 was longer, so in terms of overall value, 2009 was 11% better value than the previous year.
If 2010 is anything to go by so far, we could well see even better value this year as more capacity comes online with new ship launches. There are some amazing late deals out there at the moment available through Ideal Cruising www.idealcruising.co.uk/cruise-special-offers-733.html including 7 nights in the Western Med on Thomson for £499 departing 5 June, and 7 nights Eastern Med with Costa for £579 departing 6 June.

All inclusive

Some would argue that cruise holidays are the original All Inclusive holidays, with all your meals included in the package price, but of course this is technically Full Board, something you rarely ever see now with land based hotel holidays. The aspect that most people want to make a holiday All Inclusive is of course the free drinks. All inclusive has become a popular holiday option over recent years, allowing customers to pre-budget for the majority of their holiday costs, and providing excellent value for money, especially for families. However there is also a perception around the term "All inclusive" which conjures up the image of lots of drunk Brits dressed in shell suits, baseball caps and bling.

Thomson Cruises are now offering a Free All Inclusive package for anyone booking one of their summer 2011 cruises. So what do we think of All Inclusive on cruise holidays, given the perception mentioned earlier, and the fact that cruising attracts a more sophisticated customer? I would be interested to know people's views on this. There's no doubt the market for cruises is definitely moving to a more late booking trend, so cruise lines have to do something to encourage early bookings, and there's no doubt that a free All Inclusive package is a BIG incentive. I think that it's a smart piece of marketing on Thomson's part, and I think that the offer won't exist for ever, meaning that not all the customers on board will be All Inclusive. I think this is going to be key to making it work, the fact that it will probably be a minority of those on board. We had the sales manager from Thomson in to see us last week, and she was saying that they had changed some of the types of drinks that were featured as part of the All Inclusive package and that they had a vociferous response, and as a result have reverted to what was previously featured. I think this goes to show that cruise All Inclusive customers have more of a discerning taste!

Dodging the Ash Cloud

At http://www.idealcrusing.co.uk/ we had over 100 customers due to fly out on fly-cruises this morning. Most were fly due to fly from Gatwick to Venice and Verona, some with BA and others with easyJet. Bizarrely the two BA flights took off, but easyJet cancelled, even though Gatwick remained open for departures all morning. We were thankful for those customers who were looking forward to their hard earned holiday that they could get away on BA and it was not lost on us that tomorrow was the start of the BA strike, so they had been very lucky to get away! The great thing about a cruise is that it moves on to another location the next day, and those customers who were on easyJet we were able to fly them out to Dubrovnik this afternoon and overnight them in a what is a beautiful city where they can pick up their cruise tomorrow with little impact on their holiday. It's no surprise that the demand in the call centre today has been for ex-UK cruises. Cruising remains resilient to the Ash disruptions, and despite the criticism directed at the UK authorities from the airlines for closing airports, who can blame them for being over cautious.

And our survey says..............

The marketing people at Ideal Cruising (www.idealcruising.co.uk) surveyed their customers recently on a whole varierty of cruise holiday related topics, and some of the results were very interesting. When asked "what inspires you most to book a cruise?" the biggest response by a wide margin was "Destination" with 72% of the vote, with "Reminiscing about a previous cruise holiday" in second place. The destination theme was backed up by another question about enquiring about a cruise that showed 60% of the respondants already knew which detsination they wanted to travel to, followed by 44% who knew which cruise line or ship they wanted to sail on. Finally the three most important criteria for booking a cruise were as folllows:
1. Value for money
2. Knowing your money is safe
3. Good customer service from whom you book with