The Caribbean has accounted for between 37 and 42 percent of cruise capacity historically, according to the 2021 Cruise Industry News Annual Report, surging to nearly 50 percent in 2020 due to COVID-19 curtailing the majority of sailings for the year.

Other key markets over the years have included the Mediterranean, the second largest region by ship deployment, followed by Asia/Pacific, Northern Europe and Alaska.

The Mediterranean was moving back to growth prior to the coronavirus pandemic following a number of years with global capacity growth outpacing the region, mostly due to a number of operators moving ships out of the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea due to geopolitical reasons. Between 2015 and 2019, the Mediterranean averaged 15.3 percent of the world’s cruise capacity, according to the 2021 Cruise Industry News Annual Report.

In recent years, Asia/Pacific, thanks to the emergence of China as a key cruise market, jumped Northern Europe as the third largest deployment region, accounting for almost 16 percent of the industry’s deployment by capacity in 2017 before nosediving the following years as the Chinese market cooled.