Citing “historic demand” for booking cruises as consumer confidence rises that the pandemic is seemingly nearing its end, Expedia Group has unveiled new data that suggests that cruise travellers want to cruise as soon as possible and are changing the way they want to cruise and even where they go.

Released earlier this week during Expedia Cruises 2021 Virtual Conference, cruise executives from the online travel agency also highlighted the need for the industry to understand the evolving roles of agents, to embrace new technology for a more seamless experience for travellers and agents, and to respond to new and evolving pockets of demand, such as price-sensitive and environmentally conscious Millennials and Gen-Zers.

Among Expedia’s insights are:

• The average length of cruise bookings jumped from nine days in Q1 2019 to 11 days in Q1 2021, and the average spend per cabin has also increased by just over 100% for bookings in Q1 2021 compared with bookings in Q1 2019, showing a willingness from some cruise travellers to spend more on their cruise than pre-pandemic.

• With US vaccination rates up and more relaxed travel restrictions, 44% of new bookings in Q1 in the US market were for 2021 departures, 20% of which are for this summer – people are demonstrating that they want to cruise again as soon as possible.

• Newly released research also revealed that the desire to cruise spans different age groups too: although Millennials (53%) and Gen Zers (56%) are comparably comfortable with taking a cruise, Millennials (12%) are nearly twice as likely as Gen Zers (7%) to have booked a cruise for some time during the next six months.

• New research also showed that despite travellers currently spending more per cabin, lower pricing matters more in cruise compared with other forms of travel in some markets. From research that looks at what travellers value the most when booking a trip, cruise travel was the only line of business where travellers from numerous countries ranked low pricing as the top value. Separately, younger generations tend to be thinking more about environmentally friendly policies when thinking about cruises, most notably with Gen Z in North America ranking it jointly in the second spot after value.

While it was noted that Canadian consumer interest is still lagging behind that from south of the border, Expedia Cruises franchise owner Kyle Matheson from Richmond, BC, said many of the emerging trends certainly apply in this country: trip lengths are averaging 11 days, groups of friends and family are popular, and bucket list exotic trips and destinations (such as safaris, the Holy Land and world cruises) are among the top choices. All are signs, he says, of people looking to making up for lost time during a year of pandemic isolation.

And while, most initial cruises were being booked for 2022 and ’23, Matheson says the last couple of weeks has produced a decided “where can we go now” clientele.

A media roundtable, moderated by Charles Syvlia, VP of Industry and Trade Relations at Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), also addressed the evolving role of agents since the pandemic.

No longer simply a ‘book and go’ mentality, the message from the panel was the need to adapt, upgrade and be better-informed to support travellers through this challenging time. Now more than ever, agents will be viewed as a consultant and trusted advisor to cruise travellers who inevitably have many more questions about their trip today than before, including details about health and safety protocols, and complexities around refunds and credits.

Vancouver-based Cathy Denroche, regionals sales director of Oceania Cruises agreed that travel counsellors will play a crucial role help helping consumers navigate a return to cruising. And while she acknowledged that might seem like a daunting task given the current “tsunami of demand” and complexity of the return to travel after the pandemic, she advised that agents “don’t need to know everything.” Instead, she said, agents should simply know where to find the information they need.

After all, she said, the cruise re-start, with all its restrictions and regulations and health and safety measures is “changing all the time.”

Nevertheless, there is great cause for optimism in the cruise sector, said Expedia Cruise president Matthew Eichhorst, who noted that almost 70% of the conference attendees said in a pre-conference survey that the industry will be back to 2019 demand levels by the end of 2022.