Cruise world is in midst of hopes of sailing again, despite mounting debts and lingering uncertainties. With vaccination against COVID19 gathering some steam, cruise lines seem to have found a new lease of life. Few of them have already announced plans for sailing.
Royal Caribbean cruise line and its subsidiary Celebrity Cruises have announced to start sailing from Bahamas and St. Martin, respectively, by resuming their North America cruise services. All crew and adult passengers will be required to show the proof of vaccination against COVID-19. This definitive restart is a milestone for North America cruising, after a year-long halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As soon as the news broke out, it was immediately there in the conversations. A leading data and analytics company GlobalData has revealed that Royal Caribbean Group, formerly known as Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., (Royal Caribbean) witnessed a dramatic 200% jump in influencer conversations on Twitter during the third week of March 2021 over the previous week, following the announcement to resume cruising in June for vaccinated crew and guests.
Smitarani Tripathy, Influencer Analyst at GlobalData, commented upon this that, “The influencers sentiments were largely positive about the company’s announcement of resuming cruise services with vaccinated guests and crews from June 2021. A few of the influencers also raised virus concerns over allowing unvaccinated children.”
Post this announcement from Royal Caribbean, Saint Lucia started gearing up to welcome its first international cruise ship since closure to the sector amid the global Covid-19 pandemic. Royal Caribbean has named her as a port-of-call on a mid-July itinerary, that will see Celebrity Millennium make its first voyage of the season to the destination, as well as to sister islands and homeports of St. Marten and Barbados on its Southern Caribbean route.
Preliminary discussions between all concerned parties on this issue included a commitment that both passengers and crew over the age of 18 years would all have been vaccinated, full compliance to pre-arrival COVID-19 testing, and that tour operations would be conducted within a Green Corridor. Additionally, all persons disembarking would be subject to the standard protocols of wearing a facemask, physical distancing, and sanitizing.
Discussions are also continuing with several cruise partners that aim to see more vessels schedule their call into Port Castries in the near future. Others are thinking on the same line definitely.
Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), which represents 95% of global ocean-going cruise capacity, has already called upon US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to lift the Framework for Conditional Sailing Order (CSO) and allow for the planning of a phased resumption of cruise operations from U.S. ports by the beginning of July.
CLIA‘s President and CEO Kelly Craighead has said, “Over the past eight months, a highly-controlled resumption of cruising has continued in Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific—with nearly 400,000 passengers sailing to date in more than 10 major cruise markets. These voyages were successfully completed with industry-leading protocols that have effectively mitigated the spread of COVID-19. Additional sailings are planned in the Mediterranean and Caribbean later this spring and summer.”
According to the association, the very small fraction of reported COVID cases (fewer than 50 based on public reports) is dramatically lower than the rate on land or in any other transportation mode. “This is a testament to the industry’s unparalleled expertise, gained over more than half a century, in coordinating movements of guests and crew, efficiently organizing complex embarkations and excursions, and designing vessels that are more technologically advanced and operationally agile than any other mode of transportation,” said Craighead.
Craighead also noted “the accelerated rollout of vaccines is a gamechanger in providing for the health and well-being of the public.”
Cruising is the only sector of the U.S. economy that remains prohibited, even as most others have opened or continued to operate throughout the pandemic.
While some cruise lines have announced a few sailings catering to those who have received vaccinations—just as Royal Caribbean did—CLIA does not currently have a policy related to vaccines. The organization and its members are exploring a workable approach for how to consider vaccinations, once widely available, as part of robust protocols.
All this happens when the latest data show that world’s top three cruise lines accumulate over $60 billion in debt during the pandemic. For the top three industry players, surviving the year took its toll resulting in a high level of cash burn and massive debt burdens.
According to the latest research data, Norwegian Cruise Lines’ debt burden was over $12.15 billion. For Carnival Corporation, it was around $30 billion while for Royal Caribbean, it was over $18.95 billion. But with some positive trends emerging, all of them have seen their stock prices rebounding.
According to the industry data, Royal Caribbean’s share price as of March 24, 2021 was $82.45, up by 92.36% over the one-year period. Comparatively, in 2020, its share price fell by 44%. Similarly, Carnival Corporation and Norwegian Cruise Lines are on an uptrend since the start of 2021.
Everybody now hopes for this trend to continue. Sentiments will only become strong once the ships start sailing.
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