It’s hard to believe, but there was a time when upscale river cruising was just a gleam in the eyes of a few travel industry visionaries.
Now, of course, river cruising is one of the most popular ways to sail the world’s waterways, not to mention a great option for seeing Europe, Asia, Africa and more at a leisurely and luxurious pace.
The headline for this edition of ‘It Happened This Week’ is: ‘River cruising called #1 trend in luxury travel, eight ships added this year’
Never one to mince words, Travelweek reported: “After attending Virtuoso Travel Week in Las Vegas, Forbes magazine called river cruising the #1 luxury travel trend. This would come as a shock to anyone sailing on the Rhine River or Mississippi a couple of decades ago, when the product was basic and the passengers old.”
New river cruise ships were coming online in droves when this headline ran, and the pace of growth has never really let up. As Travelweek noted, the new-era river cruise product is “providing travel agents with a great new source of revenue, with many paying commission on all aspects of the cruise, unlike the mass market cruise lines whose ships sail the seven seas.”
Thankfully in the years since, there’s been some improvement on that front too. Big-ship cruise line Virgin Voyages made a splash with agents when it announced it would eliminate NCFs (non-commissionable fees) from the get-go.
When this story ran, AmaWaterways had 15 ships; it now has close to 30. And as Christine Duffy, then-President and CEO of CLIA, noted in this article, Avalon Waterways sent from 25 itineraries to 45 in five years.
Did the headline appear in Travelweek in 1981, 1995 or 2012?
Fill out the contest form below, with your guess and your email address. We’ll announce the answer and the winner next week, along with the next contest headline. Last week’s contest headline about the demise of Canada 3000 Holidays and Canada 3000 ran in November 2001. Our winner for Week #37 is Teresa Gogan with The Travel Store in Amherst, NS. Congratulations Teresa!
Every Wednesday in Travelweek Daily, we’re posting an article from Travelweek’s archives, spanning the years 1973 – 2023. Guess the correct year the story ran, and you could win a $50 Amazon gift card. There’s a new headline and a new chance to win every single week.
