How Gen Z and Millenials are making cruising cool again

It’s 2am and the DJ is pumping out noughties bangers. Those on the dancefloor, mostly in their early 20s to early 40s, are in their element. In the entrance to the club — a mirrored tunnel made for Instagram shoots — a group of girls are taking selfies in their best outfits. Yet, this was not a night out in London, nor Paris or Berlin. This was an evening on Virgin Voyages’ inaugural ship, Scarlet Lady, back in the Covid-test era of 2021. Backed by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, the new company was on a mission to prove that cruises were no longer the preserve of the blue-rinse brigade. It remains a mission cruise lines across the industry share: to do away with any notion of set mealtimes and staid entertainment and, in doing so, entice new, younger passengers. After all, if there’s one thing cruise bosses agree on it’s that the health of the industry relies on catering not only to veterans of the seas, but also to people who might otherwise have never considered a cruise holiday.

The kids are alright

Earlier this year, Royal Caribbean revealed that almost half of its guests in recent years have been of millennial-age or younger. More broadly, the 2023 annual report by the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) showed that, globally, millennials accounted for 22% of all passengers that year, with Generation Z accounting for 14%. Crucially, CLIA found that of those millennials who have previously cruised, 81% plan to sail again. Lydia Tempest-Mitchell, 19, is among a cohort of young people who grew up cruising with their parents, having already been on 15 to 20 sailings on about six different lines, including Celebrity, MSC, Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Virgin Voyages. “I’ve been all over on cruises — to South America, lots around Europe, to Spain and the Balearics,” she says.

One of the biggest draws cited by young cruisers such as Lydia is that, like road trips, cruises offer travellers the chance to explore multiple destinations, only with entertainment, dining experiences and time at sea thrown in. Last year, Lydia went with a group of first-time cruiser friends on a trip around the Greek islands. “It was one of the best trips of my life,” she says. “They were all really nervous about what to expect, but now one of them is trying to convince his friends to go on one.”

In many ways Lydia is exactly the kind of young person the cruise lines want to attract: someone familiar with the cruise experience since childhood and now introducing it to her friends. “If we go back 10 to 20 years, our challenge as an industry was very much about getting people to try a cruise for the first time,” says Andy Harmer, managing director of CLIA. “Because what we know is once they’ve cruised for the first time, then they’re very likely to cruise again and tell their friends and family. The good thing about the next generation of cruisers is that they’re likely to be people who grew up taking cruises with their parents. So, we don’t have that same barrier anymore because they already know and understand the cruise experience.”

The industry is also buoyed by the increasing number of multi-generational trips — groups typically consisting of three generations with children, parents and grandparents travelling together. CLIA data shows about 28% of cruisers in 2023 were part of a multi-generational party. Much of this growth is due to the diversification of ships’ onboard offerings, but also the cruise itineraries themselves. Hammer says: “These days, it’s not just about the destinations but also the curated experiences — be it activities such as hiking, cycling or kayaking, or cultural tours and wine tastings. What we know is younger people want to try something new.”

Bite-size adventures

Decades of market research has found a feeling of being ‘trapped’ on board to be a major concern for first-time cruisers. This, coupled with the widespread belief that social media has left millennials and Generation Z with shorter attention spans than their parents, has led to a growing number of ‘mini cruises’, many aimed squarely at younger customers. “Over the past couple of years, we’ve worked to bring the average length of our cruises down,” says Aaron Langford, senior sales director at Royal Caribbean in the UK. “And what we’ve found is the formula works for two reasons. One, it really entertains the ‘new to cruise’ [market], which really skews towards the younger demographic, and, two, it appears to be attracting a broader set of holidaymakers.”

Royal Caribbean’s mini cruise programme includes two- and three-night weekend sailings to see Bruges in Belgium. It also offers five-night trips to Hamburg and Rotterdam, all departing from Southampton. From Barcelona it has five-night itineraries that take in the Spanish, French and Italian Mediterranean. P&O Cruises also has a programme of shorter cruises departing from Southampton. It includes a three-night trip to Guernsey as well as four-night journeys to Amsterdam alongside a France and Belgium sailing taking in Cherbourg and Bruges.

Adam Coulter, who runs the information site Cruise Critic, believes the short cruise trend emerged in North America, where lines including Royal Caribbean have invested in private islands as a way to entice younger passengers. At Perfect Day at CocoCay, the operator’s private island in the Bahamas, you can plunge down North America’s highest water slide, splash around in the Caribbean’s largest wave pool, rise 416ft in a helium balloon, or just kick back on the beach. “Before, it was always a seven-night round trip,” says Coulter. “Now you can do four or three days or even just go to their private island. It attracts young people, because you can try it and see if you like it. If you decide it’s not for you then that’s fine. You’re not locked in for seven or 10 days.”

Getting a taste for it

Generation Instagram are also being wooed with an ever-growing array of dining options, Coulter says, with the notion of set dinner times in large dining halls firmly a thing of the past. For Virgin Voyages, cuisine was central to its offering, given millennials’ reputation for being a generation of gastronomes. As well as a collection of 20 restaurants, food carts and pop-ups, the line’s three ships offer a cocktail class that provides instruction on how to take great pictures of the drinks you make. “We’re known for the best food in the cruise industry,” says Nirmal Saverimuttu, Virgin Voyages’ chief executive. “People come on board, experience it and compare it to going out to dinner in London or New York.”

Its pièce de résistance is The Test Kitchen, a fine-dining restaurant-cum-culinary laboratory where the staff wear white coats. It’s won plaudits for its ever-evolving six-course tasting menu, with each dish centred on a key ingredient. Other brands have also stepped up their food credentials. Launched in 2022, P&O Cruises’ ship Arvia — the largest ever to be built specifically for the British market — has 17 separate places where passengers can go to eat and drink.

P&O Cruises has also signed partnerships with singers like Nicole Scherzinger, as well as celebrity chefs Marco Pierre-White and Shivi Ramoutar, which line president Paul Ludlow believes helps bring down the average age and increase appeal. “Having these people signed up [to the brand] really helps break down barriers around the perception of cruises. Everyone knows who Marco is; he’s three-Michelin-starred. And if they see that we work with him it gives them an idea of what to expect. Then they see Gary Barlow is the musical director and think ‘oh, I’d probably like the entertainment too’”.

Eco-conscious travellers may be less easily convinced, however. UK government statistics show young people have a greater environmental awareness than their parents — 86.6% of people aged 25 to 34 have ‘made some or a lot of changes to their lifestyle to help tackle environmental issues’, according to the Office for National Statistics — and while the industry is working hard to improve its image, cruising and sustainability are still far from easy bedfellows. Many lines are moving to greener technology, including ships with liquefied natural gas — far cleaner than conventional fuel. Ports around the world are also adding new shore-to-ship power infrastructure, allowing vessels to plug into the grid and switch off their engines when not at sea.

Brands are also learning from their mistakes in targeting the ‘new to cruise’ demographic. For adults-only Virgin Voyages, there were two big changes. The first, says Saverimuttu, was to make the cabins less minimalist and add some warmth. Ditched too were the £22 boxes of sex toys placed in every cabin. Second was to tone down some of the entertainment. He says: “We had an adult entertainment show that turned out to be a bit too risqué. We had a lot of feedback that it was a bit too polarising. I’d be the first to say that we’ve made mistakes along the way. We should be OK with saying, ‘hey we got that wrong.’”