Tom Stieghorst
It used to be said that growth in the luxury segment of the cruise industry was "lumpy" or "chunky."
That meant that since there was a relatively small amount of overall inventory, supply would spike for a while when a new ship was introduced. The market would take time to digest the addition and over time the extra capacity would make sense.
If that still holds true, there will be a lot of digesting going on in the next couple of years.
Small luxury ships are populating the harbors like never before. By my count there are now seven or eight legitimate luxury cruise brands world-wide, with another two or three small ship lines with some luxury overlap.
Throw in some one-off brands such as Cunard Line and you have plenty of bling to choose from.
The latest entrant is the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, an extension of the well-known Ritz-Carlton hotel brand. It expects to introduce three 298-passenger luxury vessels with a Maserati-like mystique, according to its managers.
The first Ritz-Carlton yacht is expected in 2019. That's also the current time frame for delivery of the 200-passenger Crystal Endeavor, the first of three ships planned for Crystal Yacht Expedition Cruises. Meanwhile, Ponant will be finishing up its addition of four 184-passenger luxury expedition ships.
I could go on. But you get the idea. There's going to be a lot of luxury mouths to feed in the coming years.
All of which is good for travel agents, who can make a healthy living on luxury commissions. Each of the luxury players has a strategy, a perceived edge and confidence that its brand will prevail.
It's debatable whether all of them will. The market will sort out which of all of these ships in the luxury small ship category will survive. Granted there is more wealth now than before and some lines (Ponant, Hapag-Lloyd) draw a majority of their guests from outside North America. And many of these planned ships are smaller than those of traditional luxury lines such as Regent Seven Seas Cruises or Seabourn.
But I'm guessing there's going to be some pretty good deals available on small luxury ships in 2020 and beyond.