Online Searches for Cruising Continue to Increase

The cruise line industry is as popular as ever.

Maybe more so.

According to Cruise Hive, there has been a 15 percent increase in the number of people going online and searching cruise lines. The industry has clearly rebounded from the dark days of the pandemic and is taking advantage currently of the pent-up demand for summer travel. With nearly every cruise line showing record bookings in January, it was expected that interest in cruising would wane.

Instead, the interest has only increased as the summer season gets into full swing.

The amount of online searches has grown, slowly but consistently, since the industry restarted two years ago after the pandemic. Cruising was widely blamed for spreading the pandemic, but all is forgiven, or forgotten, now. At this point, with many cruise lines booking at more than 100 percent capacity, the industry is expected to break its annual record, set in 2019.

Norwegian Cruise Lines, for example, saw an increase of 33 percent in online visits compared to last year. Even the industry’s most popular lines, Carnival and Royal Caribbean, saw an increase of 5.9 and 4.5 percent, respectively.

Cruise Hive also reported that there are increases for specific cruise lines instead of just overall broad terms. That shows that name recognition and brand awareness are up.