Australia cruise ship industry pleads to start up again in summer 2021

Billions have been lost to the economy from the shutdown of cruising but industry leaders have a plan to start the ships again.

When the pandemic hit last year, cruise entertainer James Bustar went from working all year round, dividing his time between the northern and southern hemisphere summers, to being suddenly out of work with no idea when he could start doing what he loved again.

“I started out busking in Circular Quay, and I would look up at these massive cruise ships, and I knew that’s where I wanted to go”, said Bustar, who describes his act as “a comedy juggler variety mayhem sort of show that goes at a thousand miles an hour”.

“But since the pandemic, I’ve been feeling like I have no purpose and no soul.”

Internationally renowned comedy juggler James Bustar outside Parliament House, where he travelled with a delegation from the cruise industry to lobby for a resumption of domestic cruises.

Bustar joined a delegation of representatives from the cruise industry to Canberra on Thursday, where they made their case for the limited reopening of domestic cruising in Australia in time for the coming summer season.

“An estimated $6 billion has been lost to the Australian economy since cruising was suspended in March 2020, putting more than 18,000 Australian jobs at risk.

“In NSW alone, almost $4 billion has been lost to the local economy, and more than 11,000 jobs are at risk,” Cruise Lines International Association managing director Australasia Joel Katz said, explaining the depth of the problem.

“The cruise industry needs governments to agree on a clear path forward, so we can achieve a careful resumption of domestic cruising in.”

Tourists embarking on German cruise ship Mein Schiff 2 in Malaga, Spain this week. On June 7, Spain's transport ministry lifted a ban on international cruise ships imposed at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Picture: Jorge Guerrero/AFP

“We need a plan — we need to agree on careful and responsible steps forward.

“The cruise industry has done an enormous amount of work to implement extensive new health protocols globally, but Australia is now the only major cruise destination in the world where there is no progress towards their adoption.”

That progress can’t come fast enough for Dan Russell, whose Brisbane-based specialist cruise travel agency Clean Cruising came to a “screeching” halt 15 months ago.

“JobKeeper helped us to hold on to a lot of jobs, and there has been some targeted support for the travel industry which we appreciate, but there’s nothing else in the budget so if this coming summer season doesn’t go ahead, it’s going to cost thousands of jobs across the country.”

Russell is one of the lucky ones, with Carnival Australia estimating that 25 per cent of Australian-based travel agencies specialising in cruise holidays on their boats in 2019 have now closed, with thousands of specialists forced to find other jobs.

“I’m just hoping that we can go back to work as soon as we can,” said Bustar.

“The thing for me is America has opened up, England is opening up, why can’t Australia open up for domestic cruising?”