Monday 12 March 2012

Fall in number of Nile holidays

Political unrest in Egypt saw a big fall in the number of Britons taking River Nile cruises last year.

UK holidaymakers took 58,000 Nile cruises in 2010 but only 25,200 in 2011, the Passenger Shipping Association (PSA) said.

As the Nile accounts for the vast majority of non-European river cruise holidays, the total number of trips taken by Britons on cruises outside Europe fell from 67,300 in 2010 to 33,500 last year.

European river cruise numbers, however, rose last year - going up 7% to 80,300.

The French rivers of the Rhone and the Seine saw a big increase, while the number of Britons choosing a combined cruise along the Rhine and the Danube doubled.

The Rhine, the Moselle and their tributaries attracted the most trips by Britons - totalling 20,000.

The average price paid for a river cruise rose from £1,367 in 2010 to £1,574 in 2011, with the total value of the UK river cruise market being approximately £179 million.

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