CLIA’s Andy Harmer talks about the UK’s cruise trends, changing passenger demands and his role on the government’s Visitor Economy Advisory Council
Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) hosted the inaugural UK Cruise Tourism Summit in Liverpool, England, on May 1. It brought together industry leaders, government officials, representatives from the UK’s devolved administrations, as well as ports and visit groups.
Many of the conversations and panels discussed how the cruise industry and the UK Government can work collaboratively to help the government achieve its aim of boosting inbound tourism to 50 million people a year by 2030.
Cruise & Ferry spoke with Andy Harmer, CLIA’s UK managing director, at the event to hear his perspective on various topics related to the country’s cruise industry.
What trends do you expect to see come to the fore for the UK cruise industry in 2025-2026?
What is interesting about the cruise industry is that a lot of the trends feel new, but it’s just that the sector is developing in certain ways. From the UK’s perspective as a destination, we’re certainly seeing more diversity in the types of ships coming here – there are the ships that attract families and multigenerational groups visiting key ports, and everything else in between. We’re also getting more expedition ships coming to the UK on their way to the Arctic for their season in the north. For example, one of my colleagues has recently been on a small expedition ship with 140 guests, which went up to the Isles of Scilly and Aberdeen in Scotland.
International guests are important to the UK as a destination and we’re continuing to see that, especially with passengers coming from places like Germany, the USA and Canada.
We’re seeing 20 new ships launching this year globally and the diversity of experiences and products they will offer will be key for our industry because it allows us to attract a new and wider demographic of guests. The techniques of ship design, shipbuilding and itinerary planning are now so far advanced compared to where we were maybe 30 years ago – that is an exciting aspect too.
Cruise has found a way to attract people who wouldn’t ordinarily cruise, whether they’re a family, have younger children or there’s some other factor that has previously prevented them from doing so. The cruise industry has been very good at developing product and destination experiences that appeal to a broad range of people.
Destination-themed cruises are also important. We see them a lot in the Mediterranean with things like the Grand Prix in Monte Carlo and other big sporting events. Golf is a becoming a key driver for people taking a cruise – we’re blessed in the UK that we have some great golf courses within easy reach of ports. Again, it’s that opportunity for the cruise industry to appeal to a demographic who may not have thought about taking a cruise before.
Have you seen a notable increase in calls from certain types of ships at UK ports?
The UK benefits from the fact that a lot of our key cities and destinations are right on the coast like Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland, or Belfast in Northern Ireland, and then we then rely on the port infrastructure to be able to attract those ships. One of the great things about the cruise industry in the UK is that cruises can extend the tourism season for many destinations. In Scotland, for example, cruises now head up as late as November and start in April – extending the season allows the tourism industry locally to flourish and develop.
The UK has become a great destination in itself and some of that is because of the work of people at Cruise Britain, Cruise Scotland, Cruise Wales and other destination associations, which do a great job of working with the cruise lines to explain the experiences on offer.
Has there been a measurable growth in turnarounds or homeporting calls at UK ports? If so, what factors are driving this trend?
We did a review of the 310 CLIA ocean member fleet and about one-third of those visit the UK every year. Some of them will use the UK as a port of call on the way to somewhere else, but the majority will either do a cruise around Britain or partially around Britain.
The UK’s tourism offering is well known already – there’s been great work done to showcase some of the holiday experiences the UK offers. It’s great to then connect that to cruise because cruising allows people to experience lots of different destinations in one itinerary and provides the opportunity for people to return to places they’ve visited already.
There has been great investment in the infrastructure at some of the ports, like Liverpool, Southampton, Aberdeen and Portsmouth. That investment demonstrates the local commitment to cruise and that’s important because itineraries are sometimes planned up to three years in advance, so it’s helpful for cruise brands to understand these ports have a desire to attract ships. The investment impacts those places directly because they’re able to attract more ships, but it also makes the UK is a more attractive place for the cruise brands. So, Liverpool’s investment, for example, is really exciting for the whole industry and the cruise community in the UK because we want the country to be a place that’s easy to do business with and be an attractive place to send cruise ships.
CLIA is working with the Home Office, Border Force and other organisations to understand the impact of the new border changes to ensure seamless processes for cruise tourists at our borders. That will help us to keep the flow of tourists coming.
How important was the CLIA UK Cruise Tourism Summit 2025 and what impact will it bring to the industry?
Our role is to bring everybody together. We do it a lot with our travel agent community in the UK as well as in North America and Australasia. Then there’s our other communities – the ports, destinations, cruise lines and other stakeholders, plus city and government officials. They don’t normally all come together; we usually have separate conversations with ports and destinations than we do with government, so to have them all in the same room and included in the same discussions is important.
The one thing about tourism in the UK is that it’s a devolved matter. It is very much up to the different nations to create their own strategy. Working together to create a broader strategy that’s in line with attracting cruise tourism and maximising the benefit of the sector is key. We’re hoping the inaugural summit is the first of many times we can bring those different stakeholders into the same room, so we can hear about best practices and how we can work together. We all want the same thing, it’s just that we need to do it in a coordinated manner.
You are now part of a tourism taskforce set up by the UK government with the aim of maximising the benefits of outbound travel, and to increase inbound tourism to the UK. How can this taskforce have a noticeable and sustained impact on the UK cruise industry?
I now sit on the Visitor Economy Advisory Council and there are three working groups that cruise sits on: regional, international and skills. As a tourism strategy is developed to meet the government’s stated aim of attracting 50 million tourists annually by 2030, we will be educating other stakeholders and government departments about the value of cruise tourism. We will also share our best practice and explain how the UK can attract more inbound and domestic cruise tourism. We hope that being there from the beginning means cruise will be part of the strategy as it is developed. The fact we had the minister of state for creative industries, arts and tourism at this summit says a lot about the government’s understanding that we are an important industry that can help bring economic growth to the UK in a sustainable and planned way.
It’s great that we have a voice within government – it means I can represent the views of all our different cruise lines and other stakeholders we work closely with, including the port associations. The council is a place where we can discuss how we can grow tourism; what’s interesting is that some of the challenges and opportunities that cruise tourism faces are the same as other forms of tourism.
The meetings aren’t held every six months, some of the working groups are weekly conversations. There are a lot of very talented people who know a lot about tourism in these meetings, so it’s a great place for us to talk about the broader tourism opportunity as well as how cruise fits into it more specifically.