By Theodoros Kontes, Honorary President EEKFN | Director, Majestic International Cruises Inc
The Middle East war, at this season, creates a lot of difficulties in certain areas, particularly in the Middle East programs, as well as in East Mediterranean cruising.
We keep monitoring the present difficult war circumstances affecting cruise industry, including the energy and cost increases of operation in the tourism business as well.
In any case, maybe it is not the right time to prolong such negative impacts and particularly, this period, while “Sea Trading” event in Miami and the “Poseidonia” in Greece should give positive and improved future circumstances in the tourism industry, including cruising sector.
It is very important and historically to remember that cruising originally started at the Caribbean and Bermuda in the long past years, and of course in Greece trading in the Greek islands with small size cruisers and sometimes in parallel with coastal vessels.
Further to such initial stage, cruising was expanded rapidly by improving the cruises fleet as well as developing new destinations, investing also in port infrastructures and shore facilities. Such improvements and expansions were made not only in the Caribbean and Greece, as the starting areas of such type of tourism, but also, they expanded worldwide in cruising business, by discovering new areas with important destinations.
Furthermore, all these expanded areas were passages over such interest to the local population making even further an improvement in cruise marketing to almost all nations to be interested in cruising, elsewhere in new destinations worldwide including also lately the interest in cruising in Asia, Australia, Middle East and a lot more.
Caribbean, North Europe and Mediterranean remaining on the top of interest in cruising, with proper infrastructures, with lots of investments made in all destinations including also Greece, being a very interesting location in East Med with lots of local destinations due to Polynesian territory and historical culture interests. More infrastructures need to be planned and improved in several Greek destinations.
On the other hand, a great improvement was made to cruise vessels with exceptional services on board and a lot of money invested in programmed of continuous long new buildings with great cruise lines/operators’ competition and adjustment made depending on a specific area trading, as well as specific customers’ requirements and established standards.
New buildings planning and constructions are a European mainly story, with great experience in several yards, due to special planning and coordination in building.
Lately in coordination with European firms, China make a good commencement of building with a mega cruiser. Now, it is at a late stage of completion, and we refer to a cruiser of 5200 passengers and more than 2000 cabins, and many services as per specification ordered by ADORA CRUISES, which will be ready for delivery by the end of this year.
This means that since China (as shipbuilders’ industry) is taking over to build new cruisers, we may expect for the industry to be expanded further and maybe such special constructions (cruisers) to be in competition with Europe (as exclusive up to now), with orders to be at a more competitive price.
This is a new ERA in the industry, and we may expect further expansion and order books should be reviewed.
Now it is the right time to update the present order book at this stage and may give us the opportunity to make further comments.
NOTE: It is important to mention once again the exceptional new buildings in China for the account of ADORA CRUISES with our previous comments with 4260 lower berths, maximum 5200. At the final stage of building in CSSC yard program to sail in China. The delivery will be at the end of this year at a total cost of US$850 M. In comparison with almost the same size NB in Europe at a total cost of US$1.2 / 1.3 Bil.
NOTE: Small and medium sized vessels can be easily ordered at a large stage due to shorter time of building and lower cost. Therefore, there are still gaps at such vessels to be ordered for delivery 2029 onwards.
Summarizing, it is confirmed that the present order book for cruisers from now until 2037 has a new buildings program for 77 vessels of various sizes at a total cost of 83.73 billion USD.
It is also noted that the small and medium-sized new buildings are increased considerably, including Expedition Luxury Cruisers.
In addition, there is still room for new buildings to be ordered, and we expect from 2029 and onwards numbers to increase by adding at least 33 more vessels and may succeed in several 100 units till 2037.
The luxury cruising fleet has increased considerably from 28 ships in 2010 up to 97 in 2024 and expected to have 118 by 2030 offering a total of about 47800 lower berths available.
The present available vessels are categorized (by capacity & size) as follows:
- Up to 1000 lower berths 35% (small size)
- From 1000 to 3000 lower berths 39% (medium size)
- From 3000 to 5000 lower berths 26% (mega cruisers)
Monitoring the new orderbook, followings can be noticed and analyzed:
1) Mid-sized and small-sized luxury cruisers bookings orders and requests are increased considerably and mainly refer to Expedition vessels in special trading, limited in capacity, further environmental improvements, etc. Mainly these vessels are cruising in Arctica/Antarctica/Iceland and other special protected destinations.
Several such sized vessels in the summer are relocated and cruising in Med with the Greek small islands to have such a priority in their itineraries.
Such small cruisers/yacht clubs offer special services to the guests, including also great respect for the environment.
Sailing luxury cruisers, ultra-modern up to 220 met lengths with very spacious suites and special machinery fitted with main engines to be used as additional power using LNG or hydrogen green technology securing zero carbon emissions. Some also with sailing structure configuration either normal wind sailing or solid sails.
Greece due to Polynesian as well as the long coastal line has a lot of destinations markets, and the majority are in Europe. Up to now there are official 44 destinations with Piraeus, Mykonos and Santorini to be at the top of the list with Piraeus to maintain the main homeporting in East Med.
More new destinations are requested by the cruise lines/operators, and the small sized vessels are well accepted on small islands with existing infrastructures and mainly accommodate up to 100-900 pax in luxury cruising programs.
The berth allocation system should be established globally and controlled by a shipping center. In most main destinations there is a very important requirement for controlling and planning the ships’ arrival and departures and securing well the quest, including shorex and interesting places. While the development of tourism, including cruise tourism has brought significant benefits to the local economies as well as the Greek economy in general.
To successfully complete the Greek destination operation, it may be advisable to establish and permit a certain number of guests daily from cruising to avoid overtourism areas, complaints from guests, as well as the local population to maintain their routine life.
The season 2025 was concluded with another record year for Greece with 6129 arrivals of cruisers in all destinations and 8.415.713 passengers with an increase of guests from 2024 about 6.5%. The arrivals of vessels increased by 11.5%
These results prove once again that since we have a great increased number of vessels’ arrival, smaller vessels are cruising even in Greece since the medium and small sized luxury vessels are increased.
Cruise industry in general contributes €3.2 bil to Greek economy with €1.5 bil to the Greek GDP and support 33000 jobs in our country.
These numbers refer to 2024 season, and we expect that in 2025 the numbers will increase further and they may be concluded in a region of €3.6 bil to the Greek economy and contribute €1.85 bil to the Greek GDP and also support 8000 additional jobs in comparison to 2024.
Looking at the results across Europe, the cruise sector continued its strong upwards results generating €66.2 bil in 2025 and contributing €30bil to the European GDP, reaching 455.000 jobs, while about €18 bil were generated in wages.
While globally in the worldwide industry numbers increased to a level of US$200 bil contributing about 100 bil to the global gross domestic product (GDP) and increasing the jobs in total to 1.9 million employees worldwide with wages spending about US$62 bil.
From the customers’ point of view, we have counted 34.6 million guests with total arrivals 1.3 bil and in 2025, we expect to conclude in a region of 36.8 mil passengers. Also, we must consider that at the present time, only 2.8% of the international travelers’ sail on a cruise from the tourist sector presently.
It is the safest way and the most economical type of holiday in general. In addition to such a low level of world cruising population (2.8%), you may need also to consider the customer-repeaters who are a very considerable portion of about 12%. The first-time cruisers are up 29%.
The top 10 destinations/regions in 2025 were as follows:
Caribbean / Bahamas / Bermuda
16.25 mil (represent abt 44%)
Mediterranean
6.8 mil
North Europe / others
3.4 mil
Asia / China
2.75 mil
Alaska
1.75 mil
West Coast /Mexico/ California/ Pacific
1.37 mil
Australia / New Zealand / Pacific
1.36 mil
South America / Panama
1.09 mil
Africa / Middle East
0.78 mil
Antarctica / Arctic / Galapagos / Greenland /Iceland
0.46 mil
Other worldwide destinations
0.79 mil
Further global cruising improvement speculates that by 2028, the total number of guests may be increased to 42.1 mil passengers, and more popular destinations are expected to be established if we have not any geopolitical surprises in specific areas.
