Polar cruise activity spans two very different operating environments. IAATO counted 42 operators, 51 ships and yachts, and 283 voyages in the 2013–14 Antarctic seaborne tourism season. In Nunavut, Statistics Canada recorded 22,800 non-resident visitor trips in July–September 2025, including 7,000 cruise-ship trips. These figures help put expedition scale, seasonality, visitor origins, and local economic impact into perspective.
Contents
- Antarctic cruise activity by season
- Who travels to Antarctica
- Canadian cruise seasonality
- Nunavut visitor volume and origins
- Nunavut cruise spending
- Nunavut port visitation
Antarctic cruise activity by season
The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO) provides a useful operating snapshot across four Antarctic seasons. Its counts distinguish passengers making Antarctic landings from passengers travelling on cruise-only vessels, so the measures should not be treated as interchangeable.
In the 2013–14 season, IAATO recorded 42 operators, 51 ships and yachts, and 283 voyages. The season included 27,735 passengers making Antarctic landings and 9,670 passengers travelling on cruise-only Antarctic vessels. The landing figure describes visitors who went ashore; the cruise-only figure describes a different travel format.
The 2014–15 season had 37 operators, 44 ships and yachts, and 267 voyages. Antarctic landings involved 27,243 passengers, while 9,459 passengers travelled on cruise-only vessels. The operating counts and passenger measures therefore both remained substantial even as the number of operators and voyages was lower than in the previous season.
Activity rose in 2015–16. IAATO counted 38 operators, 48 ships and yachts, and 290 voyages. There were 30,369 passengers making Antarctic landings and 8,109 passengers travelling on cruise-only vessels. The landing count was the highest among the four seasons listed here, while the cruise-only count was lower than in either 2013–14 or 2014–15.
The 2016–17 season recorded 38 operators, 47 ships and yachts, and 308 voyages. IAATO counted 36,938 passengers making Antarctic landings and 7,475 passengers on cruise-only vessels. The 308 voyages were the highest voyage count in this four-season comparison, and the cruise-only figure was the lowest.
| Antarctic season | Operators | Ships and yachts | Voyages | Landing passengers | Cruise-only passengers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013–14 | 42 | 51 | 283 | 27,735 | 9,670 |
| 2014–15 | 37 | 44 | 267 | 27,243 | 9,459 |
| 2015–16 | 38 | 48 | 290 | 30,369 | 8,109 |
| 2016–17 | 38 | 47 | 308 | 36,938 | 7,475 |
These historical figures come from IAATO’s overview of Antarctic vessel tourism, titled “IAATO Overview of Antarctic Vessel Tourism: The 2023-24 Season, and Preliminary Estimates for 2024-25.” They describe the stated seasons and should not be read as current forecasts or as a complete measure of all polar tourism.
Who travels to Antarctica
IAATO’s nationality mix for the 2023–24 Antarctic season shows a strongly concentrated market. United States residents represented 44.6% of passenger nationalities. The next largest shares were Australian residents at 7.8%, Chinese residents at 7.6%, and United Kingdom residents at 7.0%.
Canadian residents represented 5.9% of passenger nationalities, followed by German residents at 4.5%. Argentine residents accounted for 2.5%, and Brazilian residents for 2.3%. French residents represented 1.8%, while Mexican residents represented 1.0%.
| Passenger nationality | Share in 2023–24 |
|---|---|
| United States | 44.6% |
| Australia | 7.8% |
| China | 7.6% |
| United Kingdom | 7.0% |
| Canada | 5.9% |
| Germany | 4.5% |
| Argentina | 2.5% |
| Brazil | 2.3% |
| France | 1.8% |
| Mexico | 1.0% |
The percentages are shares of IAATO passenger nationalities for the 2023–24 season, not a ranking of all polar travellers worldwide. They also describe residents’ nationalities, not necessarily the country where a voyage began. For trip planning, the distribution highlights the international character of Antarctic sailings while showing how dominant the United States market was in that season.
Canadian cruise seasonality
Canada’s national cruise-passenger totals show the disruption and recovery visible across the 2019–2025 calendar years. Statistics Canada recorded 1,452,447 cruise passengers in 2019. The total fell to 715 in 2020 and reached 1,337 in 2021. It then rose to 1,223,083 in 2022, 1,826,076 in 2023, and 1,938,095 in 2024. The 2025 total was 1,908,293.
These are Canada-wide totals, not Arctic-only counts. They provide national context for cruise demand, while local Arctic figures are much smaller and more sensitive to individual itineraries and the short northern navigation season.
In 2025, Inuvik/Tuktoyaktuk, Pond Inlet, and Iqaluit together welcomed 5,591 cruise passengers. Statistics Canada reported that this combined figure was 27.0% above 2019. August was Canada’s busiest cruise month in 2025, with 407,870 passengers, illustrating how heavily cruise activity is concentrated into particular months.
The national figures and the August result are reported in Cruise ship tourism in Canada, 2025, a Statistics Canada release. The calendar-year totals should not be substituted for a polar-season total: Antarctic operations are usually discussed by season, while the Canadian series here is presented by calendar year.
Nunavut visitor volume and origins
Nunavut’s third-quarter 2025 data provide a closer view of Arctic cruise travel. From July through September 2025, non-Nunavut-resident visitors made 22,800 trips to Nunavut. Cruise ships accounted for 7,000 of those trips, or 30.7% of the total.
Residents of Canada outside Nunavut made 16,000 visitor trips, representing 70.2% of the total. United States residents made 3,700 trips, or 16.2%, while overseas residents made 3,100 trips, or 13.6%.
The origin breakdown is a trip measure for the stated quarter, not a count of unique people and not an annual total. It also covers non-Nunavut-resident visitor trips overall; the cruise-specific total is reported separately. The figures show that domestic Canadian visitors formed the largest measured origin group, with U.S. and overseas visitors making up smaller shares.
Nunavut cruise trips increased 25.0% year over year in the third quarter of 2025 compared with the third quarter of 2024. All cruise passengers in the Nunavut survey travelled for personal reasons during July–September 2025. That result describes the survey period and should not be generalized to business travel or to other quarters.
The volume and origin figures are from Nunavut tourism, July to September 2025, published by Statistics Canada.
Nunavut cruise spending
Spending data show a different scale from total visitor activity. Total visitor spending in Nunavut reached $46.1 million in the third quarter of 2025, and average visitor expenditure was $2,000 per trip. Cruise passengers accounted for $859,200 during the same quarter.
Cruise-passenger spending increased 127.6% year over year in the third quarter of 2025 compared with the third quarter of 2024. The increase is a reported comparison, not a projection of future spending. Because the cruise spending figure covers the survey quarter, it should not be presented as a full-year economic impact estimate.
Canadian-resident cruise passengers accounted for $355,100, or 41.3%, of Nunavut cruise spending. United States cruise visitors accounted for $283,500, or 33.0%. These two reported origin groups together represented $638,600 of the $859,200 cruise-spending total. The source does not provide a complete origin-by-origin spending table here, so the remaining amount should not be assigned to a particular group.
The spending measures come from Nunavut Air Exit Survey and Nunavut Cruise Exit Survey, third quarter 2025. The release reports visitor expenditure and cruise-passenger spending separately; average spending per visitor trip should not be used as though it were the average cruise-passenger spend.
Nunavut port visitation
Port-level counts illustrate how cruise activity is distributed across Nunavut communities. In the third quarter of 2025, Cambridge Bay/Iqaluktuuttiaq recorded 4,000 cruise-ship visits. Gjoa Haven/Uqsuqtuuq recorded 3,400, and Pond Inlet/Mittimatalik recorded 2,900.
| Nunavut community | Cruise-ship visits, July–September 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cambridge Bay/Iqaluktuuttiaq | 4,000 |
| Gjoa Haven/Uqsuqtuuq | 3,400 |
| Pond Inlet/Mittimatalik | 2,900 |
These are community-level cruise-ship visit counts, not unique passengers. A single passenger may be represented in visits to more than one community on the same itinerary, and the three locations do not represent every Nunavut port. The numbers are therefore most useful for understanding port-call patterns rather than calculating a total Nunavut cruise population.
Taken together, the 2025 Nunavut measures show why polar cruise planning needs several kinds of statistics. Visitor trips describe demand, passenger origins describe market composition, spending describes local economic activity, and port visits describe itinerary distribution. Each measure has its own period, geography, and unit, so comparisons are meaningful only when those definitions remain explicit.