Cruises: “2023 Wave Season” Strengthens with February Web Traffic up 55% after 28% Increase in January

Carnival leads in web traffic but lost market share versus peers. All seven leading cruise lines saw web traffic growth in February, with upstart Virgin Voyages growing the fastest, rising 205%.

Key takeaways

• Similarweb data shows a peer group of seven leading cruise lines (Carnival, Royal Caribbean, NCL, Celebrity, Princess, Holland America and Virgin) saw February web traffic growth up 55%, year-over-year in aggregate, an acceleration from January’s 28% gain. These statistics are based on Similarweb estimates of traffic from within the US.
• Virgin Voyages grew the fastest in February, up 205%, year-over-year.
• Carnival.com led in February share of traffic at 28% of the peer group but lost almost six percentage points of share. Second place was Royal Caribbean (23%) and NCL (16%). Though Virgin is the smallest at 4% of the peer group, its share of traffic has doubled in the past year.

All seven major cruise lines saw web traffic growth in February 2023

A look at the chart below shows that all seven peers we looked at in this report saw year-over-year growth in February, led by Virgin’s 205% growth, followed by 76% growth at Norwegian, 67% growth at Holland America, 92% for Celebrity Cruises, 61% for Royal Caribbean, 40% for Princess and 28% for Carnival.

This strong growth indicates that pent-up demand for cruises remains intact, and is a good omen for bookings for the industry for the 2023 wave season (consumers tend to book their annual cruises at the start of the year, between January and March).

Despite slower than peer average growth, 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 28% share of traffic, followed by Royal Caribbean at 23% and NCL at 16%. 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 2.2% share of traffic in February 2022.

Carnival, by growing slowest, lost a major share of traffic

A look at changes in share of traffic in February 2023 shows a huge drop in share for Carnival, which lost nearly six percentage points of traffic,  year-over-year, dropping to 28% from 34% a year earlier. Virgin gained 210 basis points of share, while Norwegian gained 190 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 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 (not yet in service), which is driving increased excitement and fueling booking demand for other Royal Caribbean and other ships.

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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.