Cruise holidays are set to be a top trend in 2008, it has been reported.
According to Holiday Which?, holidaymakers who in the past did not realise the potential for activities a cruise holiday offers are increasingly realising that such holidays are not "restrictive".
The comment comes after the Passenger Shipping Association reported that the number of cruise holiday passengers rose from 522,000 Britons in 1997 to 1.2 million Britons in 2006.
"I think people are beginning to realise that they're not as restrictive as maybe they once would have thought. You can actually see quite a lot on a 14-day cruise," Claire Lilley, head of research at Holiday Which? said.
She added that the number of "massive" new cruise ships being launched in 2008 is "phenomenal".
Among the new ships to be launched will be Southampton-based ship
Ventura, part of the
P&O Cruises flotilla.