River cruise bookings have all but returned to normal after taking a serious hit following the Paris attacks in November, river cruise lines reported last week.
And operators are optimistic they will make up for the Paris-related losses before the year is done.
The negative impact on Europe river cruise bookings following the attacks "was initially fairly strong," said Rudi Schreiner, the president and co-owner of AmaWaterways. And for cruises in France in particular, he added, the drop-off was "very strong."
But, Schreiner added, "Europe recovered very quickly, within a few weeks." In the end, he said, "I think that 2016 could be slightly better than 2015. I still believe in that," which would make 2016 AmaWaterways' best year since the company started in 2002.
Avalon said it has seen its bookings recalibrate in the aftermath of the attacks.
"Bookings did take a hit but have returned to normal," said Avalon Managing Director Patrick Clark. "Over the last few weeks we have seen a bookings increase over the same time last year. We do still have some catching up to do but are encouraged by the progress."
The post-Paris slump came just as the biggest player in the market, Viking River Cruises, has begun to scale back on its growth. Viking launched six Longship-class vessels in Amsterdam this month (it launched 12 last year, a record-breaking 18 in 2014 and 10 in 2013) at a christening ceremony where Viking CEO Torstein Hagen admitted that six new ships was "probably a couple ships too many this year," given the drop-off in Europe demand.
The company experienced a 58% plunge in bookings following the November attacks.
Nevertheless, with the most inventory in the market — Viking has built 52 vessels in Europe in the last five years — the company remains confident in the strength of the river cruising business.
"We're confident that demand will return, and having had our best sales day ever last week is an indication of demand starting to move in the right direction again," Richard Marnell, Viking's senior vice president of marketing, said earlier this month.
Viking's competitors said that its slowdown in growth was unique to Viking, which took a more aggressive shipbuilding approach than any other line, and was not indicative of an industrywide growth slowdown.
Viking was building in anticipation of the market's expansion for years to come, Schreiner said. And while it may have been tempting for other lines to do the same as the market was booming, Schreiner said he opted to take a path of "steady growth. I do two ships a year … I want to move on steadily."
With the number of river cruise passengers representing a tiny fraction of the amount of ocean cruise passengers, there appears to be no concern that the river cruise market is anywhere at or near capacity.
Agents who specialize in river cruises said they haven't seen any drop-off in demand overall.
"Our river cruise business remains strong to Europe," said Susan Bluhm, co-president and co-owner of Bellevue, Wash.-based Stellar Travel. She said that 2015 was a very good year for European river cruises and that thus far 2016 was keeping pace.
"I don't think we are overcapacity yet in Europe," Bluhm said. "The market potential is huge with baby boomers, and we see such high satisfaction in our post-cruise surveys."