U.S. Cruise Spending Hits Record High

Cruise lines, their passengers and crew spent a record $21.69 billion in the U.S. in 2016, up 15 percent since 2011 and representing a new peak in U.S. cruise industry expenditures, according to a new study from Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA).

CLIA’s 2016 Economic Impact Analysis, an independent study commissioned by CLIA and conducted by Business Research and Economic Advisors (BREA), shows that total contributions of the global cruise industry to the U.S. economy reached a record $47.76 billion in 2016, up 3.6 percent from 2014. This includes generating 389,432 U.S. jobs paying more than $20.5 billion in wages and salaries.

The transportation sector, which includes cruise lines and ports, benefited from $7.35 billion in output, 78,066 jobs and $3.65 billion in wages and salaries.

According to the study, 11.66 million cruise passengers worldwide embarked from U.S. ports in 2016, setting a new high and growing 5.4 percent since 2014.

The top ten U.S. cruise ports (Miami, Port Canaveral, Port Everglades, Galveston, Long Beach, New Orleans, New York, Seattle, Tampa and Los Angeles) accounted for 87.2 percent of 2016 embarkations. Florida, whose ports handled 7.08 million embarkations, accounted for nearly 61 percent of all U.S. cruise embarkations.

Embarkations from California’s ports (Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego and San Francisco) increased 5.5 percent since 2014 to 1.06 million, with an increased number of embarkations from Long Beach accounting for 57 percent of California’s total growth.

The report is available here.