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6 Biggest Cruise Trends, And How They May Change Your Cruising!
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Jan 28, 2025
I explore the 6 biggest trends in cruising and how they could change your cruise and cruising experience. These cruise trends are things I am seeing and hearing the cruise industry talking about. These are the most important trends that I think will influence and change cruising as we know and experience it today. I look at who cruising is looking to attract on board and how the on-board offering may change, what is happening and will happen to cruise fares, ports and excursions, the environmental changes and more. SUPPORT THE CHANNEL BY: Buying my Cruise T-shirts: http://bit.ly/TFTStore Booking your next cruise with CRUISEDIRECT.COM: http://bit.ly/TFTBookCruise WATCH THESE POPULAR RECENT VIDEOS: 10 Cabins to Avoid: https://youtu.be/PgTGLma919A European River Cruise Watch-Outs: https://youtu.be/oqhz54wStyk 5 Cruises To Avoid: https://youtu.be/CNiPzK4IRWA Alaska Cruise Need-to-Knows: https://youtu.be/Tn7dpNw5kSI Things Cruise Lines Don’t Want You to Know: https://youtu.be/cs5UKha9ALc Rules Passengers Break Most: https://youtu.be/djZLZ3XV_f0 Things You Can’t Do On A Cruise Any More: https://youtu.be/zas6F4wMD0Q Should You Pay Cruise Gratuities: https://youtu.be/QBYzqxXjEXQ Gary Bembridge's Tips For Travellers aims to help you make more of your precious travel time and money on land and when cruising the oceans or rivers of the world. To help you, in every video I draw on my first-hand tips and advice from travelling every month for over 20 years and 77 cruises at time of making this video. Follow Tips For Travellers on:
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what are the biggest trends in cruising
0:02
for 2020 I'm Gary Bainbridge this is
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another of my cruising tips for
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travelers I want to give you my
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predictions on what I think the six big
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trends that you're gonna experience in
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cruising in 2020 are starting with this
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one
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without shadow of a doubt we're going to
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keep seeing the continued growth of
0:21
cruising both in terms of passenger
0:24
trips and also the expansion of ships
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it's predicted that there will be 32
0:31
million passenger journeys in 2020 which
0:35
is up from 30 million in 2019 but
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importantly that growth is being fueled
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by a couple of things first of all there
0:41
are more ships coming into service every
0:44
year there are loads of them in 2020
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there are going to be 19 new ships
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coming into service across a wide range
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of cruise lines including Carnival
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celebrity Crystal Cruises cost MSC
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Cruises P&O Cruises Poland Regent Seven
1:00
Seas Royal Caribbean saga silver sea so
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many new ships coming which of course
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gets a lot of excitement and people
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trying cruise ships particularly some of
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them are pretty innovative the other
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thing that's going to drive it a lot is
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Expedition cruising there's a great big
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growth in expedition cruising and
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there's new ships coming as well as new
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itineraries from the cruise lines like
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silver sea pond on scenic crystal lynn
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Blart
1:26
all of them have new ships coming along
1:28
and there's just a lot of energy a lot
1:30
of noise about expedition cruising
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that's going to place like Arctic
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Antarctica and some of the more exotic
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places in the world so that's a big
1:37
driver the other big driver I think of
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the growth increasing is going to be
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more more focus on adults and on solar
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travelers so the last couple of years a
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lot of the growth increasing has come
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from attracting families on to cruising
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as a great value proposition also
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getting more multi-generational
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obviously because traditionally cruising
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has been a little bit older and so
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encouraging the sort of grandparents to
2:00
get their kids and their kids kids onto
2:02
cruises so that's been a big push and a
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real big focus for the cruising however
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what I think we're seeing more and more
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is cruise lines on to chase the next
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generation so they're tracing the
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Millennials the generation air
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who are starting to become more
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interested in cruising and we've seen
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some developments in that area so for
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example virgin voyages with their
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scarlet lady which is gonna be a teen
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focus trying to be very youthful ii
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driven we're seeing even for example in
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the UK mirela cruises when they got a
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new ship they made it adults only
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focused and of course other cruise lines
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like saga which are bringing new ships
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on board which are focused on the adult
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markets so i think we're going to see a
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lot of focus on adult cruising as
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there's an opportunity to have ships and
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itineraries and routes which cater for
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couples particular young couples who
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don't want to be surrounded by families
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so i think we're definitely gonna see in
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2020 lots of action happening around
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those key areas the second big trend
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that i think is emerging and going to
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become more and more prevalent to 2020
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is the bundling and getting rid of some
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of those extra costs and bundling them
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into the fare there's a lot of pushback
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around the extra charges of things like
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chewties Wi-Fi because of course as you
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get more and more younger people and
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more more connected people on board
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they're used to just having Wi-Fi as
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included because they even go to
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Starbucks or wherever and it's having
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Wi-Fi easily accessible so we're seeing
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lots of pushback to the extra charges
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whether it's especially dining Wi-Fi
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which is all those kind of things and
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what I've seen is a couple of really
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interesting things that make me feel
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that during 2020 and beyond we're gonna
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see fares becoming more bundled or
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inclusive virgin he's making a lot of
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ways when they launch if you excuse the
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pun because when they come aboard their
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fares are than they include gratuities
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then can include a lot of basic drinks
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you know some soft drinks juices coffees
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they're going to include Wi-Fi they can
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include all of the special a dining so
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dining on all of their venues is
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included in the price so bundling more
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and more in that's gonna make a lot of
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people I think in the industry watch how
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that goes the other thing that I've
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observed is we're starting to see some
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cruise lines particularly in the UK
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starting to bundle things in more so in
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the last year pno of billed patooties
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into their fare
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mirela have an all-inclusive option
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where everything is included within the
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fare
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except for excursions so we're starting
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to see that the other thing I found very
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interesting as I was booking
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various cruises I'm doing in 2020 pretty
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much all of them had
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bundled fares in some way so all the
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creases I'm going on have offers and
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deals when I booked which bundle things
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in so for example I'm going on a
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Norwegian Cruise in the Caribbean and
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that included special a dining Wi-Fi
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gratuities also things included Oceania
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obviously have their Oh life fairs where
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you can choose to take excursions drinks
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packages or onboard credit ponent
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and other cruises that I've booked that
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in bundles pretty much everything in so
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I'm seeing more and more that starting
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to happen and when I looked at a lot of
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the offers and deals what used to happen
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is a lot of them we're offering things
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like upgrades but I'm seeing more and
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more now they're bundled in so for
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example another cruise that I've booked
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with celebrity again pretty much
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everything was bundled in through that
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offer so it's either going to become
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formal or you're gonna find more and
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more you can buy deals and get deals
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which have things more bundle I think
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that's have become a big trend
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particularly to try and attract more
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people that are used to just having
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these things all included
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so the third trend is linked to that and
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so what Cruise Lines I think are going
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to start to do during the course of 2020
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and give me examples where they're
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already doing that is as they bundle
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more things into the fare they need to
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find new things that they can charge you
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once you get onboard to generate revenue
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the most obvious of these is the pay to
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get access so traditionally speaking if
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you're in a suite you'd get all sorts of
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things included priority disembarkation
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embarkation perhaps priority seating in
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the restaurant you might get some meals
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bundled in and some of the special
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dining so we're seeing that start to
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happen more and more as cruise lines are
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looking for new ways of charging people
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so for example Carnival have on many of
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their cruisers particularly the
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Carribean faster to the fun program
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which you pay a premium for and that
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gives you things like invocation get
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your luggage quicker all that kind of
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stuff then you have Royal Caribbean
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which has the the key which has even
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more included where you get your
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priority and vocation to some vocation
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but does include an invocation data
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Sandbach head shouldn't a meal priority
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seating in the restaurants and all sorts
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of others benefits and features so
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that's a new way of getting people to
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pay extra things and I think we're gonna
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see more and more people searching out
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ways that they can get people to charge
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once you're onboard
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as they bundle more things into the fair
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I think that's going to be a big trend
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coming in 2020 the next trend is one
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around the changing the way that cruise
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lines call on ports one of the big
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challenges as cruises become more more
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popular is over tourism and places
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getting really really crowded and
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certainly been in some of the key places
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in the Caribbean or in the Mediterranean
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these places are getting crazy crazy
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busy so cruise lines are increasingly
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having to look at how to improve the
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whole experience boats for the cities
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the towns the ports and also the
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passengers so I think we're going to see
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more and more stuff and it starts
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happening already so for example we're
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seeing more more cruise lines offer
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longer stay so overnight stays for
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example this also means that they can
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then arrive a little bit later so some
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of the ships might be there earlier
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people going for excursions earlier they
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arrive a little bit later because
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they're staying overnight about staying
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to lunchtime the next day so we're going
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to see a lot of that happening the other
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thing that we're seeing happening linked
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that is excursions and nature excursions
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are changing where they're looking at
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putting on more and more excursions to
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encourage people to get further out so
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of course the big incentive for cities
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and towns and regions is you're trying
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to push more money and people further
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out so they share the benefit of the
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cruise industry so I think you're going
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to see more and more excursions which
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are trying to get people away from the
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crowded areas the other thing that we're
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seeing increasingly is some of the ports
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are very congested so whether it's
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Barcelona or Venice or even Southampton
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in the UK just using some examples in
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Europe and what we're starting to see
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increasingly is looking at alternative
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port so in Venice you know moving to a
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port further away from Venice
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Barcelona's looking an example in the UK
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Portsmouth are trying to attract more
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cruise ships which is just a little bit
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down from Southampton Dover is trying to
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attract more cruise ships so starting to
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see actually pushing where the ships
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leave from depart from into more varied
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ports closeby but just spreading some of
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the load I think we going to see more
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and more of this happening as they try
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to figure out how do they stagger and
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reduce the impact of cruise and cruise
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passengers ramming into places and we're
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gonna see that so much more of course
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one of the obvious trends is we're going
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to see more and more focus on the
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environment both from a PR perspective
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but also from a practical perspective as
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cruising grows and as
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the whole attitude of passengers
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government's regulatory bodies focuses
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on the environment the cruise industry
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has to change they've set a target of
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reducing emissions for example in this
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decade by 40% so for example what
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they're doing is looking for alternative
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fossil fuels so almost half of all new
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builds now use LNG liquefied natural gas
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which is dramatically better we're
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seeing low sulfur fuels being introduced
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there's even some experimentation to go
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on smaller expedition vehicles with
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hybrid and battery and biofuel so a real
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big push to try and reduce the
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environmental footprint and the carbon
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footprint of cruising a huge push on
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recycling removal of single plastics
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across cruise ships of recycling better
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just really looking at the whole waste
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waste management wastewater how they
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deal with waste so I think there's going
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to be a huge amount of push on
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environment partly because they have to
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but also I think passengers sending
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already and through 2020 are going to
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become more and more demanding and I
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think I started choosing cruise lines
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that they see and ships that they see
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that have a better environmental
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footprint then the past
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another example is increasingly ports
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are putting in shoreside power so cruise
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ships can actually plug themselves in to
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the power grid so they're not in towns
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pumping out stuff into the air and of
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course ports are being really pushed by
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the residents in those areas to improve
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the air quality things like that I think
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we're going to see much more high
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profile and much more pressure on cruise
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lines to address the other thing I think
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we're going to keep seeing as a trend is
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this obsession that cruise lines have
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with brand partnerships every time I go
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on a cruise I no matter which cruise on
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it is whether it be not before or not I
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just see more and more brand
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partnerships popping up the seas because
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real obsession with giving people in the
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comment board recognized brands so for
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example I'll give example when I was on
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the Seabourn cruise recently they had a
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partnership with Tim Rice to do shows
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that a partnership with Thomas Keller -
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on the food they had a partnership with
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molten brown on toiletries that a
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partnership with dr. Weil on wellness
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that a partner with a guy called Brian
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van Flandern aren't drinks they're a
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partnership with UNESCO and excursions
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and every time I go on a cruise I see
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more and more these brown partnerships
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and also linked to that is branded
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offerings so you
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more well-known brands for land
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appearing up on ships as dining venues
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for example so there seems to be that
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obsession and I think that's going to
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keep growing in 2020 those are
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predictions of some of the big trends in
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2020 if you have any thoughts love to
11:23
hear them but remember I have loads more
11:26
videos packed full of cruising tips and
11:28
advice so why don't you watch another
11:30
one of them right now
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