The chair of Clia UK & Ireland says the future is bright for river cruise and interest in the sector has “never been stronger”.

More than 100 agents – 45% – who attended the trade association’s RiverView conference in Budapest last weekend revealed they currently did not sell river cruise.

However, Ben Bouldin, Royal Caribbean International’s vice president, EMEA, painted a positive picture for the sector in his first speech focusing on the river sector as Clia chair.

He highlighted AmaWaterways’ Seven River Journeys in 2023 as one example of how demand demonstrated consumer confidence.

“Despite the last two years, it looks like interest in this sector has never been stronger, so that bodes extremely well for the future,” he said.

“The number of searches and reader engagement is continuing to build slowly but surely on quite a consistent basis.”

Calling the entire cruise industry “resilient” and “agile”, he said: “I think we’re through the worst of the pandemic although case numbers are incredibly high.

“The world is beginning to open up and that’s fantastic for an industry that has been cut off at the knees for the last couple of years. We’ve demonstrated a huge ability to overcome adversity.

“I firmly believe there’s no better way to see Europe than via a cruise or a river cruise. You get to see so many ports of call, so many cities, so many locations.”

Around 57% of agents polled prior to the conference said they knew Europe the best, while 20% said they knew south-east Asia better than any other river cruise destination.

And 62% of agents said their clients were switching from holiday types – such as city breaks, touring and hotels – to river cruise.

But in terms of barriers to selling more river cruise, 60% cited ‘travel uncertainty’; 48% blamed ‘customer awareness’; 38% pointed to ‘Covid awareness’; 29% said ‘economic situation’ and 24% highlighted ‘lack of agent awareness’.