Are you looking for the latest cruise to book your clients? The expedition segment is currently seeing one of the largest upticks in consumer interest, with expedition ship requests up more than 56% among the more than 19 million overall cruise requests received by Cruise Compete, an online platform that connects cruisers with cruise line deals. (What’s more, clients are not waiting until Wave Season to book, according to new data from InsureMyTrip.)
Where Are Expedition Cruisers Going?
Remote destinations are driving the Cruise Compete searches, including Tristan da Cunha (a British Overseas Territory); Torshavn in the Faroe Islands;Longyearbyen, Norway; Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland; Cape York Peninsula in Australia; Palmerston in the Cook Islands and Iqaluit in Nunavut, Canada.
Expedition Ships That Will Visit Trending Destinations
New ships heading to Tristan da Cunha include Seabourn Cruise Line’s Seabourn Venture and Swan Hellenic’s SH Vega. The latter is also set to navigate Torshavn in the Faroe Islands, along with Atlas Ocean Voyages’ Word Traveller and Lindblad Expeditions’ National Geographic Resolution. Yet-to-be-launched vessels will also soon visit the Faroe Islands, including Explora Journeys’ Explora I and Scenic Luxury Cruises & Tours’ Scenic Eclipse II.
Meanwhile, the aforementioned National Geographic Resolution (and its sister ship, National Geographic Endurance) and Scenic Eclipse II (as well as the original Scenic Eclipse), in addition to Quark Expeditions’ latest Ultramarine, are schedule to head to Longyearbyen, Norway. Scenic Eclipse, Seabourn Venture and SH Vega are also setting out for Ittoqqortoormiit in Greenland, and so, too, is Ponant’s uniquely genuine icebreaker — Le Commandant Charcot.
For those clients interested in sailing on Lindblad’s National Geographic Resolution and Scenic’s Scenic Eclipse II elsewhere, Palmerston in the Cook Islands is also on the agenda. And, last but not least, Swan Hellenic’s SH Vega is also targeting Iqaluit in Nunavut, Canada.
Clients Are Eager to Cruise Now (or Very Soon) and Will Spend More
InsureMyTrip’s latest report also asked cruisers if they plan to cruise within the next two years. The response was overwhelmingly “yes,” from 96.1% of respondents, with only 1.1% saying no and another 2.8% undecided.
"The results of this survey show travelers are, once again, feeling comfortable cruising,” said Meghan Walch, product director for InsureMyTrip. “The cruise industry took a big hit during the pandemic. It is encouraging to see the cruise industry bounce back after a couple of tough years.”
Additional data compiled from Cruise Compete and InsureMyTrip shows that September, October, November and December are the most popular months to take a cruise, so the end of 2022 is still full of sales opportunity.
And perhaps most satisfying for travel agents is the higher price that clients are willing to now pay (amounting to greater commissions along the way). InsureMyTrip researchers discovered that the average trip cost for an insured cruise vacation in 2022 is $6,367, up from $5,420 in 2019.
