Cruises: April 2023 Web Traffic Growth Decelerates to 9% from 52% in Q1

Carnival leads in web traffic but lost share versus peers. Five of seven leading cruise lines saw web traffic growth in April, with upstart Virgin Voyages growing the fastest, rising 140%.

Key takeaways

• Similarweb data shows a peer group of seven leading cruise lines – Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL), Celebrity, Princess, Holland America, and Virgin – saw April web traffic growth of 9%, year over year. This is sharply slower growth than the 52%, in the aggregate, the peer group posted in Q1. These statistics are based on Similarweb estimates of traffic from within the US.
• Virgin Voyages traffic grew the fastest in April up 140%, year-over-year.
• Carnival led in March’s share of traffic at 27% of the peer group but lost seven percentage points of share. Second place was Royal Caribbean (24%) and NCL (15%). Though Virgin is the smallest at 4% of the peer group, its share of traffic has doubled in the past year.

Five of seven major cruise lines saw web traffic growth in April 2023

A look at the chart below shows that all seven peers we looked at in this report saw year-over-year growth in March,  led by Virgin’s 140% growth, followed by 40% growth at Celebrity, 33% at Norwegian, 31% growth at Holland America, and 28% for Princess. After a strong Q1, Carnival saw April web traffic decline 13%, year-over-year, and Royal Caribbean saw a 3% decline.

Strong growth in Q1 has led to more muted growth in April but still supports a view that pent-up demand for cruises remains intact. Overall, bookings and pricing for the industry for the rest of the year are likely to be strong, given a high book of business at the cruise lines after a strong wave season (consumers tend to book their annual cruises at the start of the year, between January and March).

Despite a drop in web traffic in April, Carnival has the highest share of traffic

Using share of traffic as a proxy for market share, since most consumers will visit a cruise line’s website before booking, you can see that Carnival leads this peer group with a 27% share of traffic, followed by Royal Caribbean at 24% and NCL at 15%. Notably, though Virgin trails all peers in this report with only a 4% share, they have doubled their share of traffic over the past year, as they had a 2% share of traffic in April 2022.

Carnival lost a major share of traffic, and smaller cruise lines gained a share

A look at changes in share of traffic in April 2023 shows a huge drop in share for Carnival, which lost seven percentage points of traffic, year-over-year, dropping to 27% from 34% a year earlier. Norwegian had a strong month, gaining 2.8 percentage points on the peer group. Virgin gained 200 basis points of share, while Princess gained 200 basis points, Celebrity gained 190 basis points of share and Holland America gained 150 basis points. You can see that represented in the chart below.

Web traffic growth indicative of strong demand

Cruises were among the last travel-related businesses to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic when the industry was shut down for over a year, while hotels and airlines continued to operate. We think there is still significant pent-up demand for cruises that are driving higher traffic. There are also a few new ships coming into service, including Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, which is driving increased excitement and fueling booking demand for other Royal Caribbean and other ships.

Publicly traded companies mentioned in this report include Carnival Corp. (NYSE:CCL), Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NYSE:NCLH), and Royal Caribbean Cruises (NYSE:RCL).

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Report By: Jim Corridore, Senior Insights Manager

Methodology

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by Jim Corridore

Senior Analyst

Jim provides insights across multiple sectors. With 30 years on Wall Street and numerous awards for stock-picking, he is a SUNY Albany graduate.