| Cruise Weekly breaking news – Australian cruise passenger numbers up by 135,000 in 2015

Another cruise industry record for Australia.

Cruise Lines International Association has just released its statistics for Australia for the last 12 months, confirming that for the first time more than a million Australians took an ocean cruise in 2015.

The figures do not incorporate river cruising, and indicate a total market penetration of 4.5%, the highest in any global market.

Domestic passengers surged a whopping 42% to 269,915, meaning one in four Australian cruise passengers took a domestic ocean cruise last year. There was also strong growth in cruising to Asia, while Europe also remains popular and is now bigger than New Zealand in terms of outbound cruise destinations.

CLIA chairman Steve Odell said the new shorter coastal cruises sailing from Australian homeports had “clearly captured the imagination of Australians,” along with the expanding range of cruise options from Asia. 

The average ocean cruise length was 9.8 days, with Australians spending a total of 10.4 million days at sea.

More details in today’s issue of Cruise Weekly.