26.7m people cruised globally in 2017, CLIA reports

2018 forecast goes to 28m

CLIA also upped its 2018 forecast to 28m passengers from last December's forecast of 27.2m.

Asia market grows 20.5% year over year

The fast-growing Asia market produced 4.06m passengers, a steep 20.5% increase from 2016, and about 15% of the global ocean passenger volume in 2017.

US/Canada passenger numbers rise 5%

The US and Canada count grew 5% over the prior year with a total of more than 13m ocean cruisers, or a 49% share of the global market.

Modest 2.5% increase for Europe

In Europe, the passenger count was up a modest 2.5% over 2016, totaling nearly 6.96m passengers, or 26% of the global market.

Australia and the Pacific chalked up nearly 1.44m cruisers.

The South/Central America source market consisted of 850,000 passengers.

CLIA put the average age of global ocean passengers in 2017 at 47. The average cruise length was 7.2 days, slightly shorter (2%) than in 2016.