Why US Consumers Are the Driving Force Behind the Cruise Industry

Shen: So the scale again, that capacity, with over 300 ships, 540,000 passengers, it sounds pretty impressive, but you have to keep in mind that cruising only represents a small portion of the global travel and leisure industry. Various sources value global annual bookings in this industry for total travel and leisure at $1.2 trillion, but the cruise industry revenue last year was only about $30 billion, that’s only about 3% of the total. By comparison, commercial airlines accounts for closer to $800 billion travel spending. You could consider this a niche within the sector.