The cruise ship industry announced growing at record levels.
Last year, there were 28.5M cruise passengers at the world level, which was a record high that is due to be surpassed in 2019, with a forecast of 30M. This is expected to increase to up to 40M by 2028.
These are some of the figures provided by CLIA (Cruise Lines International Association), which said the sector still had "enormous development potential."
So far, cruise passengers account for just 2% of the 1.4 billion vacationers travelling in the world every year. A central role plays Europe with 7.17M cruise passengers recorded last year, a 3.3% rise on 2017. Of them, more than 4M sailed in the Mediterranean. There was a significant increase in the Eastern Mediterranean, with +8.5% that brought the total to 746,000 cruise passengers.
CLIA noted that was "a sign of the return of confidence for an area that depends a great deal on Italy and especially Venice, which with its qualification as homeport attracts almost all Adriatic traffic and 60% of eastern Mediterranean traffic."
Cruise Lines International Association also noted the increase in flows towards the Canaries (+9.6%) and the Baltics (+9%), while Central and Western Mediterranean remain the most popular with a 1.2% growth for a total of 2.27M passengers. Also well, was Northern Europe, which achieved a +4.8% and arrived at 1.43M cruise passengers overall.