There is a cycle by which people start planning their travel through to when they actually go. We’ve seen that cycle significantly interrupted this year as a result of the pandemic, so we’re learning to roll with the new cycle – mostly by listening carefully to the cues from our clients.
In a normal July, we would typically be seeing people planning their winter trips for November through March. For our clients, July is when they most often book trips to Australia/New Zealand and Tahiti, and also the exotic, extended cruises through SE Asia and India.
This year, not so much… probably not a big surprise.
I suspect that once Australia and New Zealand open back up that we’ll see a bit of a rush for people to travel there: those countries have hardly had any covid, and it is easy and safe to travel there.
Here are some other trends that are beginning to emerge:
Tahiti is open to US passport holders as of next week and might be worth looking at for this coming (northern hemisphere) winter season. Lots of cruise lines visit Tahiti and French Polynesia, and our favorite cruise line for this part of the world is Paul Gauguin.
Domestic Travel. We’re still seeing strong demand for Mississippi and Columbia River cruises for this year. Here’s a link to an article we published a few weeks ago about those rivers: https://pamperedcruiser.com/river-cruising-in-the-us-mississippi-columbia-snake/
We are also getting a lot of interest for 2021 for Alaska and Canada/New England cruises. It is disappointing to have lost the 2020 season, but it is a reasonable assumption that Canada will open its ports for 2021.
River Cruises. Life-long ocean cruisers are asking us a lot of questions about river cruises. Particularly those travellers who most often sail on Celebrity, Holland America and Princess. I think these lines will still have a loyal following, but their recovery will be a bit slower compared to river cruise and small ocean ship lines. People are understandably more comfortable travelling on ships with under 200 people, as opposed to 2000 or more.
We have seen Crystal River Cruises put on some incredible pricing for Rhine and Danube River cruises for 2021. Here’s a link to an article we wrote about this in June, and I’m happy to report not only have they extended this deal to July, but they’ve also added some additional sailings that include the Christmas markets in late 2021: https://pamperedcruiser.com/best-prices-on-2021-river-cruises/
Europe 2021. The river cruise lines in Europe are fuller for 2021 than they normally would be 12 months in advance. This also seems to apply to small-ship ocean cruises in the Baltic Sea, as well as those focused on the UK/Ireland. This probably stands to reason, as many people picked up their 2020 Europe plans, and bunted them ahead a year. If the Baltics are on your horizon, I’ll write next week about a deal I’m investigating for that cruise market.
Caribbean. Believe it or not, we’re seeing strong demand for small ship Caribbean cruises this fall. I think this might be function of people just really needing to travel, but the demand is certainly being helped along by some of the incredible deals we’re seeing on the small ship ocean lines. Here’s a link to an article we wrote a month ago about Crystal Ocean: https://pamperedcruiser.com/unheard-of-opportunity-for-caribbean/
Longer Lead Times. Our normal interval between someone booking a trip, and someone taking that trip between 6 and 12 months, with the average being almost exactly 9 months. In the last several weeks, we have seen this interval lengthen to about 14 months on average. Some people are just not ready to travel yet, but that hasn’t stopped them from planning their next trip. Planning and dreaming is half the fun of travelling, so why not?
More flexible booking arrangements. The cruise lines are doing their best to make it easy for people to dream, so most of them have adjusted booking conditions in place that enable changes on short notice without penalty, should the pandemic continue to wreak havoc with travellers’ plans.
Oberammergau. We’re getting lots of enquiries about the Passion Play that happens once every ten years in Oberammergau, Germany. Unfortunately, it was scheduled for 2020, so it was cancelled and rescheduled for 2022. We are expecting cruise packages to Oberammergau to be released before the end of the summer, but we are in a holding pattern on this for now. If this is on your radar… stay tuned.
I wrote last week about how life has largely returned to normal for people who live in Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. We are a few weeks behind these other countries, but looking to what is happening in those places is a good indication of what we can expect here in the coming months. Those countries are all open to each other, and we are slowly seeing people cautiously returning to travel.
Of course, this is taking longer than any of us would like, but we will get there.
Stay safe.
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Sue Bradley
Sue Bradley
