Cruise Lines, their passengers and crew spent a record $21.69 billion in the US in 2016, up 15 per cent since 2011 and representing a new peak in US cruise industry expenditures, according to a new study from Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), the world's largest cruise industry trade association.
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 US economy reached a record $47.76 billion in 2016, up 3.6 per cent from 2014. This includes generating 389,432 US jobs paying more than $20.5 billion in wages and salaries.
“The global cruise industry is a critical contributor to the U.S. economy and we see clear evidence of the industry's positive impact across the country,” said Cindy D'Aoust, president and CEO, CLIA. “We saw cruise lines purchasing goods or services in support of their operations, and passengers traveling for their cruise vacations. The cruise industry continues to prosper and set economic records, and that's good news for cruise lines, cruise employees, suppliers and passengers.”
According to CLIA's study, 11.66 million cruise passengers worldwide embarked from US ports in 2016, setting a new high and growing 5.4 per cent since 2014.
The top ten US cruise ports accounted for 87.2 per cent of 2016 embarkations, and Florida whose ports handled 7.08 million embarkations accounted for nearly 61 per cent of all US cruise embarkations. Embarkations from California's ports (Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego and San Francisco) increased 5.5 per cent since 2014 to 1.06 million, with an increased number of embarkations from Long Beach accounting for 57 per cent of California's total growth.