Source: Cruise Industry News.
The luxury segment offers cruises ranging from seven nights and up; per diem rates are among the highest in the industry, the ships are either medium-sized or small, but spacious, and tend to sail worldwide. They offer superb food and service.
This travel market has more than tripled in size since 2010. Based on the number of ships, from 28 ships in 2010 to 97 cruise ships in 2024. That’s nearly threefold growth in the number of ships (and total lower berths of the combined fleet) compared to 14 years ago. Based on the orderbook, the luxury segment of cruise shipping will continue to grow and exceed 40,000 lower berths by 2027.
The capacity growth is expected to meet demand, which has been rising faster than in any other cruise segment. In 2010, luxury cruise passengers numbered 355,000, representing 2% of the total cruise passengers for that particular year. Following a notable increase, luxury cruise passengers exceeded the one million threshold for the first time in 2023 (3% of the total cruise volume of the year), and are expected to be more than 1,5 million by 2028, when they will represent 4% of the total number of cruise passengers.