Brinley Hineman
Can Europe’s river cruise growth be supported by infrastructure?
It’s a question on the minds of many travel advisors as the industry explodes in popularity with no sign of slowing down. It’s routine for Viking to add multiple ships each year and other lines to add at least one each. Celebrity has 20 ships on order. Transcend is bringing on six. AmaWaterways just outlined a plan for more orders. Growth is the name of the game.
But when I ask advisors about growth, it’s common to hear a question in return: “Where are these ships going to dock?” And that worry is supported by a recent report from Cleveland Research, which found that docking capacity will be “the ceiling for growth.”
“The risk of river cruise ‘overcrowding’ is less about water space and largely attributable to docking capacity in small destination towns in Europe along the key river itineraries,” the report said.
Docks are precious real estate, with lines vying for the best spot. Some docks are in more industrial areas of town, and in those locations, passengers can’t waltz off the ship onto the cobblestone streets of fairytale villages.
But the alternative is tethering ships to each other, forcing passengers to cross one to two ships before they reach land. That’s not ideal for older passengers or those with mobility issues, especially if they must traverse metal staircases in the rain (I myself have nearly slipped several times.)
Then you have Amsterdam, which boasts the second-largest river cruise port in the world and is a key gateway to the Rhine, turning away river cruisers with a plan to slash calls in half, further limiting options for docking.
Crowded ports aren’t a pressing concern yet, Cleveland Research says, though it’s “on everyone’s radar” in the coming years.
It is certainly on Avalon president Pam Hoffee’s mind.
“It used to be a thing that if you were double docked, if there were two ships together, people would get upset about it, and now it's just totally normalized,” she told me at the ASTA River Cruise Expo in Amsterdam. “There's still room there, but it is something that worries me, when you hear the big numbers that some people are talking about.”
There's also a captain shortage on the rivers, Hoffee said, which poses a problem if lines can't educate and support crew quickly enough to rise the ranks.
Celebrity’s announcement about entering the market, though largely supported, did have a healthy dose of skepticism as advisors questioned room on the river. And that hasn’t stopped.
Travel advisor Lena Arcedo of Seven Heaven Travel in New York also attended the expo this year and said while executives were touting fleet expansions, she was feeling a wave of concern.
“I was sitting there and thinking where are all of those ships going?” she told me.
Ready or not, we’ll see.