Over the last 10 years cruising has been the buzzword within the travel market as one of the consistently highest performing sectors. By 2013 it is predicted that over 2 million British holiday makers will be cruising with a large proportion of these holidays departing from the UK.

There is much speculation as to why there has been such tremendous growth over the last decade in the cruise industry and generally the increase can be attributed to a number of factors. Firstly, on what other holiday can you visit up to 6 different places within a week and only unpack once? Also, many ports of call offered by cruise lines are off the beaten track and toexperience them as aland based holiday is both difficult and expensive. Another reason for the growth is the variety offered there are so many different destinations around the world you can always find a company or ship going to your;desired destination.

Gourmet food and service is another attraction for many people. Many of the cruise ships now have speciality restaurants which are endorsed by Celebrity Chefs. For example, Cunard is endorsed by the famous American Chef Todd English and P&O cruises feature Gary Rhodes restaurants on both the Arcadia and the Oriana.

A further large attraction for many people are the facilities and value for money which cruising now represents. All cruise lines offer the basic facilities of swimming pools, Jacuzzis, gyms and theatres and nowadays, many of the new ships have facilities that some towns would even dream off. Latest innovations include Ice Bars, Zip Wires, Flow riders (Surfing Simulator) and even Ice Skating rinks at sea. Some cruise lines even offer performances of full dancing on ice type production show during the cruise. Near enough all of these facilities are included in the price and this where cruising does represent such good value for money.

However all this innovation and constant building of ships has come at a price. With the major cruise lines believing in their product and all of the hype around the industry has this recession shown they have taken a step too far. Cruise prices are dropping as there is an abundance of spare beds and this is not a problem for just one Cruise Company but all of them. Examples are 14 night cruises to the Caribbean on the Ventura a ship that is only 18 months old and owned by the UK's largest cruise company P&O. There has been pricing never seen before within the cruise industry.

So why is this causing such a problem? A hotel has room nights and to operate profitably it needs to be around 75% full. However a cruise ship is very different. It needs to go out at 99% full due to the additional costs of running the ship and is also heavily reliant on onboard spend in the bar, shops and casino to achieve its profit The other disadvantage cruise ships have is their extraordinary costs to build. Nowadays you will not get much change out of £300 million pounds and with the newest and largest ships in the world costing over a billion dollars you have to doubt Princess Cruise's decision to build 2 new ships.

These ships which Princess Cruises are building are due to be delivered in spring 2013 and 2014. The most interesting part is these are the largest ships ever built for Princess Cruises and a new design instead of the tried and tested ships that Carnival Corp normally build. The question needed to be asked are where will they be getting their extra customers from in an already saturated market and most importantly where are they going to deploy these ships where they can get the revenues that these ships need to stay afloat?