The peak season on the foreign holiday market starts this week with higher-than-expected bookings, and with the number of passengers exceeding the pre-pandemic peak.Continue reading
The number of Hungarians booking cruises has exceeded pre-Covid levels, with some weeks and even months seeing four times as many bookings as in previous record years, Világgazdaság reports.
With Hungarian passengers mostly paying for a week to ten-day Mediterranean cruise, the cruise market has fully recovered from the slowdown caused by Covid and is better than ever, according to Lilla Kobale, owner of hajosutak.com. The company manager emphasized that cruises used to be popular among older people, but an increasing number of young people are now choosing it as well.
MSC’s newest cruise ship, the Euribia, was inaugurated in Copenhagen a few days ago, but in addition to the gigantic cruise ship, new ones are being launched almost every month to meet the growing demand of smaller companies, including the European market leaders MSC, Costa, and Aida. New ships are also increasingly being built to minimize emissions.
Everyone was surprised by the pace of the market’s resurgence after the coronavirus outbreak. The travel fever is a phenomenon that is prevalent throughout Europe, and Hungary is no exception, with more and more people taking to the modern and comfortable form of holidaying by sea every year.
Hungarians prefer Venice and Trieste as a departure point, as they are easily and quickly accessible by car. However, it is worth noting that in Venice, due to the ban on cruise ships, passengers are taken by bus to the embarkation point. Milan is also a popular departure point, as it is accessible by low-cost flights from Budapest.
Cruises from Trieste and Venice are mainly to Turkey and the Greek islands, while trips starting from Genoa are to Italian and Spanish cities. Lisbon and Madeira are also popular destinations, but there are no short trips, with groups arriving and returning in 10-11 days,
said Kobale.
The interior of MSC’s newest cruise ship, the Euribia. Photo via Facebook/Hajósutak.com
The cruise can also be tried out with three-day so-called ‘broken trips,’ when the boat does not return to the place it started from.
There are many different types of cruise ships, both in terms of capacity and age. Typically, ships can accommodate two to five thousand people while providing the infrastructure of a complete city and the unrivaled comfort of a luxury hotel.
“The main advantage of cruise tourism is that they sail at night and dock for a day or two in the morning,” highlighted the owner of hajosutak.com.
July and August are high season in the Mediterranean, during which the best priced and most conveniently located cabins sell out quickly, although there are last minute promotions and other discounts where you can book for half price.
In Kobale’s experience, online booking is less common for cruises than for classic holidays, presumably because the booking system is very complicated and it takes practice in order to find the best deals. As a result, the number of package holidays is proportionally the highest and this is not expected to change for the time being.
Featured Photo via Pexels