Agents hail ‘incredible’ growth in river cruise sales

Agents have hailed “incredible” growth in river cruise sales at the Clia RiverView conference in Amsterdam.

Agency executives pointed to increasing opportunities with more capacity being added globally, together with a younger demographic looking to experience river cruising.

Travel Counsellors head of cruise Janet Whittingham said cruise was “absolutely flying” with “incredible numbers” as overall sales were up 29% on last year, ahead of 8% year-on-year sales growth for leisure.

Whittingham said: “From a river point of view, it has been incredible right from the word go.

“We are now 44% up on river and luxury is next with 29%, so we can’t not be happy with those numbers.”

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Advantage Travel Partnership director of cruise Jonny Peat described river cruise sales as “a runaway train”, citing a 47% increase in river cruise sales year on year across the consortia members.

“We are seeing real success with river,” he said. “And the numbers were up last year [versus 2024] and long may that continue.”

Barrhead Travel managing director Nicki Tempest-Mitchell said the business had been “pushing” river for the last three years, and every year growth was “getting stronger and stronger”.

She attributed this to the agency “putting a lot of activity” behind river and operators educating the trade more about sector.

Tempest-Mitchell said: “There are more ships and the industry is definitely explaining more about why people should be cruising and why we should be going on river cruising.

“We are putting a concerted effort into our people as we have set up our river cruise champions programme.”

She said these champions started in 30 branches and are now “brilliant at what they do”, so the focus needs to move to “another layer” by bringing in more people who have never seen a river cruise.

Tempest-Mitchell added customers aged between 34 to 44 had grown by 75% year on year, with couples making up 80% of river customers and groups of more than three taking up 20% of bookings.

“Our core audience is definitely 55 to 85, however, our fastest-growing sector is actually 34 to 44,” she said.

“What we’re trying to do is work with cruise lines to get better imagery around the ships and audiences on board and focus a lot on the onboard experience, the gastronomy and what we can do off the ship as bringing the destination to life is really important for customers.”

She said “the biggest challenges” for agents selling river cruise was operators not taking flight allocations and articulating their differences.

Tempest-Mitchell said: “Most of the river cruise lines say that their bookings are coming through about six months or less before travel, and that puts pressure on the air piece because there is less availability and fewer direct routes available.

“I would say try and fix some of the northern [customer] challenges, it is probably our allocations and the second biggest challenge our people are saying is tell us your difference.”

Travel Village Group chief executive Phil Nuttall echoed this as he said getting direct flights from the North and Scotland was “difficult”, but stressed there was "work to be done" on the marketing to get new people to try a river cruise.

Nuttall said: “River could do a bit more working with tourist boards to bring destinations to life.

“The adverts you see on TV are very stereotypical and it is normally before an advert for someone with a stairlift.

“We need to make it exciting and talk about the destinations more. We have the Champions League of destinations as you work your way through the rivers.”

Whittingham said that new marketing would help dispel the myth that river cruise is for the older category and “a little bit stale”.

She said: “We know it is a lot more than that and we need that help from a marketing angle to help get that perception across and myth-bust as much as we can, because it is a world of wonderful experiences.”

Whittingham added that when she asked ChatGPT what river cruising was, it answered that it was “a holiday for people that want to navigate the rivers and cities of the world”.

She said this demonstrated the point that focusing on the experience and destination can help shift perceptions.

Peat agreed, adding: “Nobody would be filling ships and trading as brilliantly as they all are if the food was substandard.

“I think it’s pretty clear that every ship that we’ve been on in the last couple of days is offering exceptional food and beverage, so for me, it’s more about those experiences, and perhaps tapping into the touring communities.”