Caribbean cruises losing market share, says Cruise Holidays

A smaller percentage of cruisers have booked Caribbean sailings for 2015, according to a forecast by Cruise Holidays International.

The survey shows 50.5% of cruise bookings for next year have the Caribbean as their destination, down from 54.8% in 2014.

Europe is gaining, with 12% of ocean cruises booked there next year, up from 10.4%. European river cruises account for 6.7% of bookings, up from 5.7% last year.

Cruise ship capacity in the Caribbean peaked in 2014 and is currently scheduled to begin declining in the second quarter of 2015, leaving fewer available berths.

The 2015 Cruise Trends forecast is based on bookings by 1,300 agents affiliated with Cruise Holidays.

A Dutch waterways cruise beginning in Amsterdam again is the most popular river cruise for 2015, followed by the Rhine/Main/Danube cruise through Central Europe, the Rhine Valley cruise, and a cruise through France on the Seine and Rhone rivers.

River cruises departing from two cities in Myanmar joined the list of top five non-European river cruises, after cruises departing from Beijing and Shanghai (tied for first) and one departing Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.