Tamworth: P&O Australia's Pacific Explorer took a handful of lucky residents on its first commercial cruise

P&O Australia's Pacific Explorer took to the seas on Tuesday to welcome back the cruise industry after the March 2020 ban was lifted last month.

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Tamworth travel agent Chris Watson told the Leader from the boat deck that the term 'revenge travel' is becoming popular.

"It sounds a bit nasty, but it's all about people wanting to travel now because they're getting their revenge on COVID," he said.

"We're seeing people spend larger amounts and ticking things off their bucket list, so things that maybe they were going to wait 10 years for, they're going 'nope, we're gonna do that now because we never know what the world's going to throw at us'."

Cruise ships were banned in Australia following the Ruby Princess debacle which saw thousands of passengers allowed to leave the boat while displaying COVID symptoms.

In the weeks following, more than 600 passengers tested positive and 28 died in Australia and internationally.

Mr Watson admitted a lot of people would have some issues about wanting to board a cruise ship, but demand was strong.

"Cruising has come back really strong, and actually stronger than what it was for pre-booking prior to COVID, so there's obviously some consumer confidence coming back into the market," he said.

After two-and-a-half years of COVID decimating the travel industry, the return of people planning to get away is welcome.

"Now we're starting to see that travel is back and that we are able to start to experience and remind ourselves what the excitement was about and why we got into travel," Mr Watson said.

Crowds aren't quite back like they were before COVID, which makes it a perfect time to start planning a sea holiday, said Mr Watson.

"I've never seen prices like this on cruising outside of Australia before," he said.

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