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Cruises

European river cruises see major boost in demand and bookings

Jane Archer

Photo Credit: The Viking Helvetia River cruise ship crosses the Rhine River between Germany and France.  Flickr / MBell

Skift Take

A push for authentic, intimate luxury travel experiences and a bad stretch for the ocean-going cruise industry has done wonders for demand for river cruise ships in Europe, and in Egypt despite political tensions.

More Britons than ever took a river cruise last year, pushing numbers up 14 per cent to almost 130,000, the latest figures from the Passenger Shipping Association show. European river cruises alone saw an increase of 12 per cent to a record 90,000. While the number of people taking an ocean cruise grew less than 0.1 per cent last year – reaching a total of 1,701,000 – demand for rivers journeys soared. Safety issues in the wake of the Costa Concordia disaster, a burgeoning number of river-cruise itinera

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