Report Buyer, the online destination for business intelligence for major industry sectors, has added a new report analysing the cruise market.

Cruise Market: Market Assessment 2008 reveals that more than half (53.6%) of consumers said that they would not spend more on holidays in 2008 than they had in 2007.

The report shows that this will be worrying for tour operators, as in 2008 the costs for these are rising on the back of the higher price of crude oil. Furthermore, 25.2% of respondents to the survey agreed that they would be spending less on their holidays in the next year than in the past year.

Authors of the report note that this trend could also be of concern for the cruise market, as cruise ships burn millions of gallons of oil.

They further note that fortunately for cruise operators, the age group comprising the keenest cruisers, the 55- 64 year-olds, many of whom have paid off their mortgages and are in a gap between their children leaving home and the need to care for elderly relatives. Even so, more than half of them, 50.9%, said that they would not be increasing their holiday expenditure in the coming year.

In the UK, the report estimates that the number of cruise-takers should approach 1.6 million in 2008 and exceed 1.7 million in 2010.  However, the mood of caution among analysts intensified in 2008. Yet even in a flat economy, and in the context of declining popularity of package holidays overall, the cruise sector should do relatively well

Cruise Market: Market Assessment 2008

Report Buyer product ID: KEY00013

Report Buyer Category: Leisure & Media