Topic: Britain rules the waves! (well, sort of)...

OK, so we've never been enamored with our European neighbours, and that's probably down to our different ways and languages (with maybe just a bit of history thrown in....)

But it's nice to know we share a common love in cruising!

As well as the Brits, more and more Germans, Italians, French and Spanish are cruising than ever before.

But we still come first... ;) Hee hee

Cruising the waves last year were...

1.53 million Brits
1.02 million Germans
790,000 Italians
627,000 Spanish

I wonder how many Americans cruised last year? I think it would blow our figures out of the water! Or so to speak...

According to Berlitz 2010 the figures are for 2008:
USA 13.5 million
Europe (excl UK) 2.9
UK 1.477
Asia 0.66

Total world 19.765

You can see why Carnival and its associated companies dominate the market.

So looking at those figures, given that some of the US cruise lines are placing half of their fleet in the Med for 2011 it must mean that a lot of Americans travel over to cruise in Europe every year.

QUOTE:

So looking at those figures, given that some of the US cruise lines are placing half of their fleet in the Med for 2011 it must mean that a lot of Americans travel over to cruise in Europe every year.

Hi Sue.
In my experience, Americans like to take their time when touring Europe and will often come over and do back to back cruises if and where they can.
When we cruised the Baltics from Harwich last May, the ship had previously just crossed the pond having finished it's cruising season over there. When we boarded at Harwich, we were quite surprised to see so many Americans on board.
Jill

The Berlitz figures were, of course, for 2008. Since then there has been a world-wide recession which hit the USA very hard so it is possible that the number of American passengers will dip for a time. None the less as a general rule cruising is still primarily the American favourite vacation.
It is also a fact that many Americans tend to prefer short cruises (7 days or less) and are not over-enamoured by days at sea.
All this is the reason why so many cruise lines accept a cruising style more suited to Americans than other nationalities.