Our survey says: Fear of being seasick puts people off cruising

The grandees of UK’s cruise industry will gather in Liverpool next week for CLIA’s Columbus Day – a conference and networking extravaganza culminating in a dinner and awards presentation. They do love their awards in the travel industry!
Michael Bayley, president and CEO of Celebrity Cruises, and Christine Duffy, who holds the same positions and titles at the Cruise Lines International Association, are flying in from America.
They will be joined on stage by Geneva-based Neil Palomba, commercial operating officer of MSC Cruises; Nathan Philpot, sales and marketing director of Fred Olsen; and Jo Rzymowska, the chair of CLIA UK and Ireland whose day job is associate vice-president and general manager at Royal Caribbean in the UK and who is about to become managing director of Celebrity Cruises.
Each will be urging an audience of travel agents and marketing people to do their utmost to get more holidaymakers on board. They wrestle with the problem almost every working hour.
Cruising is one of the best-value holiday options around, it grows in popularity year by year, and yet there are still millions who remain unconverted.
What can possibly be preventing them shelling out their cash and striding up the gangway?
Online travel agent bonvoyage.co.uk thinks it has found the answer. After questioning more than 2,000 people who have never taken a cruise it discovered that 72 per cent were worried they would be seasick.
And this is despite the fact that only 38 per cent of them had actually ever suffered from mal de mer – on smaller vessels and in choppy seas.
Bonvoyage’s cruise development manager Steph Curtin said: “There are always going to be misconceptions that are thought of as fact. However, when the findings revealed almost three quarters of people are wary of going on a cruise due to concerns of sea-sickness, I must admit I was quite surprised!
“The truth is that cruise ships don’t move around anywhere near as much as smaller boats or ferries. It is very unlikely someone will suffer from sea-sickness on a cruise, but if the unlikely did occur, cruise ships will carry all the necessary medications to help ease symptoms, as well as offering access to an on-board doctor.”
Other factors deterring people from booking cruises included worries that children would get bored (53 per cent) and concern that “all you seem to do is eat” (48 per cent). Almost a third thought that they would not get enough time in port.