The cruise industry insists millennials love them—but the proof is unconvincing

Carnival pointed to the Cruise Lines International Association, the industry’s international trade organization, which says the average age of a cruiser in North America is 46 (PDF, page 2), a number that has gone down from previous years. While that average age is certainly not reflective of the retirement stereotype many people have of cruisers, an average also doesn’t tell us the number of people in each age group—so it’s not that helpful.

The cruise industry shares other data to make it seem like millennials love to book cruises, but dig a little and the assertion seems less convincing. CLIA’s 2018 Cruise Travel Report says the number of millennials that would “definitely” book a cruise for their next trip jumped from 63% to 70%. The sample size of 1,605 was stratified into four age groups, and the number of millennials polled wasn’t published. Another study, from the American Society of Travel Agents (and sponsored by the Carnival Corporation), said that a whopping 48% of millennials had cruised in the past and a 61% of them strongly liked it. The sample size of this study, which spanned three different age groups, was 1,522 and said to be representative of US census in age proportion.

When you think of this data another way, if almost three quarters of millennials plan to book a cruise for their next trip and half of them have been on one in the past, the average millennial should find that the majority of their friends are trading conventional travel in favor of the high seas. (For the record: I’m a millennial, and I can think of only a single friend who’s been on a cruise.)

That said, Colleen McDaniel, the executive editor of leading cruise website Cruise Critic, has anecdotally seen an uptick in millennials’ interest in cruises. She adds that some of the changes cruises are making to attract millennials go beyond mere optics like music-themed and family-oriented cruises—millennials are parents, too—and extend to a refocussing on the destinations that cruises visit.