Cruise industry predicts robust growth Senior cruise shipping executives have predicted that the sector will bounce back quickly from January's Costa Concordia accident with robust growth this year and next bolstered by growing emerging market demand and the launch of new ships. Kevin Sheehan, chief executive of Norwegian Cruise Line, the third-largest line by fleet size, told the Cruise Shipping Miami conference that he hoped the industry was now moving on with its future. It would be a "fantastic growth proposition" for the next couple of years, he added. His comments were echoed by Pierfrancesco Vago of MSC Cruises, the market number four by fleet size, who expressed optimism that even the southern European market, worst hit by economic worries and safety concerns, was on the way to recovery. "I know a lot of people are pessimistic in Europe but I'm looking forward," he said. Meanwhile, Gerald Cahill, chief executive of Carnival Cruise Lines, the largest single brand of Carnival, the market leader, said he anticipated taking more bookings at higher prices than last year. "It hasn't been as good as it would have been without the accident," he said. But my forecast shows an increase in revenue for the year. I think the industry will weather this. The men were speaking at a discussion about the state of the industry featuring representatives of all the four biggest international cruise shipping companies at the conference, the industry's most important annual get-together. The event is the first large convention for the sector since the Costa Concordia, operated by a subsidiary of Carnival, hit rocks off the Italian island of Giglio on January 13 and capsized, leaving 25 passengers and crew dead and a further seven still missing. Carnival had already said on Friday that full-year net revenue yields would be only 2 to 4 per cent down across all its brands, including Costa, the most severely affected. All those speaking sounded particularly enthusiastic about the opportunities in emerging markets in Asia and Latin America, where cruise holidays remain a relative novelty. Brazil, Australia and Canada are all showing strong growth. Mr Cahill said Carnival, which had always focused primarily on the US, was basing a ship in Australia this year after noticing a spike in Australian tourists coming to the US to take its cruises and showing particularly high satisfaction ratings. It was doing the same with the UK after noting a similar phenomenon on its cruises in Europe, marketed mainly at Americans. Cruise shipping demand worldwide more than doubled between 2000 and 2011, from 7.2m trips to 16.3m, as the industry took on 143 new ships in that period, with another 12 due for delivery this year. Mr Sheehan pointed to the new ships, many of them far larger than their predecessors, as a particular reason for optimism. "We're all thinking about the next generation of ships," he said. We're going to continue to be successful as an industry.