Cruise ships such as Azamara Quest are smaller than the megaliners and the average stay in port is usually longer, meaning more spending onshore.
Cruise ships such as Azamara Quest are smaller than the megaliners and the average stay in port is usually longer, meaning more spending onshore.
Geopolitical concerns may see an increase in high-end cruise ships plotting a course to Southern Hemisphere.
A luxury cruise industry veteran says New Zealand stands to benefit from global instability that is making cruising difficult in some parts of the world.
Larry Pimentel, president and chief executive of Azamara Club Cruises, said the outlook for his company's parent, Royal Caribbean, was rosy with one rider.
"Geopolitics - if anything that could derail, that's generally it."
Azamara is Royal Caribbean's boutique line for high-end passengers and is coming to New Zealand waters during the next three summers, where he said there would be rapid growth in the coming years.
Apart from being high on the bucket list for its passengers, part of the motivation for coming to New Zealand was to avoid trouble elsewhere in the world said Pimentel, who has headed Cunard Line and has more than 25 years of experience in the sector.
"I remember having this conversation with itinerary planners and saying 'Let's go to New Zealand, let's go to Australia where we're less likely to have geopolitical nightmares that we can have in Europe'," he said while in Auckland.
Egypt and Tunisia were off the map for itinerary planners, the Black Sea region was unstable and the flood of refugees to southern Europe presented big problems for cruise lines.
"Now with the migration it's very problematic because you have thousands of people taking small craft. Ships have an obligation under law to pick them up - it's very precarious because if we pick them up a country can say we don't wish to have them and we have to repatriate them by law."
He said it was likely fewer ships will cruise around the eastern Mediterranean.
"I would say the eastern Med would be very complicated."
Pimentel said Azamara surveyed its passengers more than two years ago to find out where they most wanted to go.
"We have a very affluent guest and it turns out that New Zealand was one of the top of the bucket list and that was because of the natural and organic beauty and the fact it is so remote for most that they hadn't seen it but everything they knew about it was very positive."
Larry Pimental.
Since then itinerary planners have been here to scout out ports and attractions. Azamara's ships are just over an eighth the size of the biggest megaliners and the emphasis is on the port calls where they stay for longer than the average.
"There's no shortage of sights and sounds - the country has an abundance of opportunities for tourists," Pimentel said.
More cruise ships were based in China, meaning they could more easily come to Australasia during the summer high season and he said capacity was likely to increase at around 30 per cent a year.
This would continue to put pressure on facilities.
"Having been in this industry for many decades, for me it's a re-run of an old movie. You can see where the traffic is coming from in the metrics.
"The Government starts to think about it in the middle of the boom rather than the start of the boom and what can happen is that ship owners can see no more places to bring the ship in so go elsewhere."
Surveys of Azamara ships' passengers showed they on average around US$250,000 a year, more than double the industry average.
The average room rate was US$440 a day - including alcohol, tips, and cultural excursions - and this was higher than the industry average and translated to more spending onshore.
There was a close relationship between ticket price and what was spent on land. "Historically they spend 4.2 more on land than on (their room). They're spending rapidly - they've got one chance."
Larry Pimentel
• President and chief executive of Azamara Club Cruises
• Azamara is the luxury arm of Royal Caribbean, best known for its mega-liners
