British cruising on the increase.

The Passenger Shipping Association  has recently released figures regarding our cruising habits in 2012 and it makes really interesting reading.

In 2012 1.7 million British passengers took an ocean cruise, with cruising accounting for 1 in 8 overseas package holidays. The popularity of river cruises also grew by 14% with 130,000 taking a river cruise.

The most popular destination for British cruisers was unsurprisingly the Mediterranean which accounted for 698,000 passengers. However there was a huge increase in passengers visiting Northern Europe with 443,000 visiting this region, 29% up on 2011. Nearly 50 % of these visited the Norwegian Fjords.

About half of British cruisers actually choose to cruise from a UK departure port and the continued growth in this sector is largely fuelled by the ease of cruising from the UK and the number of ships on offer. This summer Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Cunard, P&O, Princess, MSC, Cruise and Maritime, Holland America and Fred.Olsen all have ships based from the UK. The luxury cruise lines also account for 1.7% of British cruises passengers and Silversea, Regent and  Crystal all offer itinerariries from the UK.

There has also been a huge increase in the number of passengers visiting a UK port during their cruise with an 11% increase. The economic benefits of  customers from around the world coming into our country are great.

All in all it has been a great year for British cruising and the growth is expected to increase in 2013.
If you haven't cruised before perhaps you too should try it.