River cruise is no longer “a niche product” but the sector must do more to attract families, according to industry leaders.
Speaking at Clia RiverView 2025, AmaWaterways co-founder Kristin Karst said river cruising had historically “always been an afterthought” to ocean cruising, but that this was no longer the case.
She said: “It is no longer this niche product only for retired people. It is now for everyone and it will be even more so in the future, which is why it is so important to always go out and attract the next river cruise customers.”
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A-Rosa managing director Lucia Rowe echoed this sentiment, saying river cruise passengers were “coming out of the mainstream”.
She pointed to Celebrity Cruises’ entry into river cruising, highlighting it as an example that the sector was “not going to be niche anymore”.
Rowe added A-Rosa had “targeted and embraced” the family and multi-generation market in 2024 which had “paid off”.
Its ship, A-Rosa Sena, has dedicated family cabins, a kids club and separate children’s pool.
Rowe said the line had carried more than 3000 kids on board in 2024 which she called “no mean feat for a river cruise”.
She added: “I’m speaking not just about our own brand, but it has become a trend, and I’m absolutely convinced it’s here to stay, because parents and grandparents and so on will continue to want to discover.”
Barrhead Travel Group managing director Nicki Tempest-Mitchell said she had seen “significant growth” in river cruise sales since 2023, when the group increased its focus on the sector.
However, she highlighted that only a very small proportion of river cruise bookings come from the family market, with only three from the thousands made across the group since then including children.
She added this segment of the market could be an “opportunity to target” if operators had a specific offering.
Tempest-Mitchell explained: “We’re spreading into a new arena and we’ve got a fantastic database to be able to talk to about river cruising, but we haven’t cracked families, so that’s another opportunity.
“The average passenger is couples, probably because we are not calling out the family piece a lot.”
Tempest-Mitchell added there was “not enough TV [advertising]” from the sector, calling on operators to up their marketing efforts.
She said: “It is a medium for accelerated growth and it probably under-indexes at the moment versus others.”