By: Staff Writer
April 13, 2021
An international financier with experience with infrastructural projects in the Caribbean said that there is “no way” the cruise line industry will recover in 2021 and says it will be “devastating” for the Caribbean.
Andre Wright, executive vice president of Standard International Group, told Caribbean Magazine Plus that due to the arguing back and forth between the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) in the US and the Cruise Line International Association over the former not approving timelines for sailing has created “frustration” within the cruise line industry.
The issue with not approving a timeline for sailing has to do with the COVID-19 protocols that the CDC is requiring the CLIA membership to have in place before they would be allowed to take on passengers and resume sailing.
Mr Wright also said: “Cruise lines also have to have health protocols for each and every port they visit. Cruise lines are already impacted financially, because they’ve had to retrofit their fleet to meet the protocol. Now, they’re only going to be operating at about 50 percent capacity with an increase over, 30 or 60 day periods depending upon how they meet the guidelines.”
The CDC, provided technical instructions on their Conditional Sailing Order (CSO) issued in October, where they are now, “requiring cruise lines to establish agreements at ports where they intend to operate, implement routine testing of crew, and develop plans incorporating vaccination strategies to reduce the risk of introduction and spread of COVID-19 by crew and passengers.”
The CDC is also asking for cruise lines to increase their reporting frequency on COVID-19 cases and illnesses from weekly to daily and also implement routine testing of all crew members based on each ship’s colour status.
Ships that classify as “red” with either no port agreements or their agreements are pending, should conduct screening testing of crew members weekly and those as “orange” will be every two weeks. Ships that classify as “yellow” have no specified time and those with “green” should conduct testing every 28 days.
The CDC has also decreased the amount of time that it takes for a ship that has classified as red to become green from 28 days to now 14 days.
Cruise lines will also have to create planning materials for any agreement that they enter into with any port authority and local health authority and those authorities must approve that each individual ship has the necessary infrastructure to manage any outbreak that would happen on board as well as have the necessary capacity and housing to isolate infected people.
Mr Wright said that despite all of this, “the impact will be is that they will hopefully begin to recover some revenue, because right now, they’re just burning through cash. So I’m hopeful that they’ll be able to be able to recover some economic benefit, because a lot of passengers that are rebooking and you’re reading a lot of these bookings, those are not new bookings, some of those bookings are actually former cancellation.”
Mr Wright also warned about the cruise industry outlook for 2021 and said, “At 50 percent it’s got to be tough for them to have any realistic expectations and furthermore, a lot of these crews and with some of these destinations, the on Island experience will be has been reduced because some of those companies have had a year layoff. So the impact the economic impact to the Caribbean islands is going to be devastating.”
Mr Wright also said in order for Caribbean ports to weather this devastation they will have to “modify their berthing agreements,” with these cruise lines. He added: “That would allow the cruise line to bring in some benefit, but recover it in some of the outlying years.
“The other thing that they’re going to really need to do is to beef up their experiences. Remember, the cruise lines were already taking most of the passengers’ dollars outside of t-shirts and jewellery and certain trinkets. So this is a time for the islands to get their act together on improving the experiences or increasing the experiences for those passengers.”
“No way there will be recovery for the cruise industry for 2021,” said Mr Wright, because half of the year would be already over if the CDC stays on course to allow them to resume sailing in June as some cruise lines have already started promoting their itineraries. He added: “Not at 50 percent and that kind of liability is clear. The math just doesn’t work out.”