In the next five years, Royal Caribbean is going to look to expand its itineraries to include stops in Africa, according to its UK and Ireland trade trainer.

At the recent Association of Cruise Experts cruise expo, Leon Hand admitted Africa remained an area which Royal Caribbean needed to “make a dent in”.

“It’s at the food for thought stage,” he said, “but we are certainly thinking about it. We know that Africa is an emerging market, and it’s somewhere we will be looking at adding [to our itineraries] in the next five years.”

While Africa is on the horizon, northern Europe is booming as a popular port stop with Russia and Scandinavia in particular growing in popularity among cruisers from the UK.  In addition the Mediterranean, non-European union countries continued to lead the way, such as Croatia, Egypt and Turkey.