Hundreds of bookings cut as desperate cruise industry fears ‘devastating’ 2022
Hundreds of passengers’ bookings have been slashed amid the latest cruise ban extension into the new year, which the industry fears will be crippling.
NSW
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Passengers booked on one of 16 cruises planned to set sail from Australian ports will have their tickets ripped up on Wednesday in the latest round of axings that have so far cost the economy $10 billion.
The cruise industry warns the extension on the ban on ships by Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt to February 17 means the industry will not be able to restart until at least the middle of next year.
“There is absolutely no joy in having to cancel cruises for our passengers or seeing the distress of our many suppliers who have now been struggling for almost two years and see no end in sight,” P & O Cruises Australia spokesman David Jones said.
“Like us, passengers, suppliers and travel agents just want some certainty and why it is so important for federal and state governments to agree on a restart plan.”
P & O Cruises Australia’s cancellation of 16 cruises on Wednesday brings the total it has axed to more than 450 and marks the anniversary of a full two years of closures.
That figure does not include the hundreds of axed voyages by other cruise line companies.
Just a month ago Mr Hunt was saying “we would like to see cruising back on before Christmas” and talking about scrapping the Biosecurity Act ban preventing cruise ships from travelling in and out of Australia. A bill strengthening that Act has been stalled in parliament for months.
Labor Health spokesman Mark Butler said: “What the cruise and tourism sector needs is certainty but instead all they are getting is mixed messages from the Morrison Government.”
Joel Katz, managing director of industry body the Cruise Lines International Association said: “By the time we get to March 2022, it’ll be two years of bans – $10 billion – lost that would usually be injected into the economy.
“The majority of that would be in NSW and would be in Sydney. All those hotels and restaurants who are desperate for activity to come back into the CBD are telling us they rely on cruises to help get foot traffic and it’s just not there,” he said.
Alarmingly many of those local cruise passengers, worth $3.3 billion a year to NSW, are being lost to overseas destinations. “What’s more worrying as people can increasingly travel overseas, more and more people are telling us they’re booking cruises overseas,” Mr Katz said.
Australia is one of the few cruising countries still banning cruise liners and industry insiders believe it is because politicians are scared of a repeat of 2020’s Ruby Princess fiasco.
“Around the world, 86 countries have now restarted cruising. Eighty per cent of the global cruise capacity is back in operation, and almost five million passengers have successfully cruised in other countries using exactly the same health protocols we’re proposing in NSW,” he said.
“We’ve been calling on all the levels of Australian government to engage with the industry on some level of restart in this region.”
In March 2020 the Ruby Princess docked in Sydney with many passengers on board unknowingly infected with Covid.
A series of blunders by NSW Health officials allowed almost 2700 to disembark — many coughing and spluttering — and enter the community.
Mr Katz believes that debacle has made the federal Government overly cautious.
“We are saying to the government they need to look at this through a December 2021 lens, not a March 2020 lens. Back in March 2020, everyone was learning about how this virus works.
“As an industry we’ve worked to develop the most comprehensive set of protocols of any sector within travel and tourism, and it’s those protocols that have underpinned the successful restart in all other countries,” he said.
“I’ve been talking to travel agents over the weekend who just can’t understand why they’ve been deserted by the government. They can’t fathom why this ongoing impact the ban will have on them … and why the government won’t outlay a plan to reopen is leading them to despair.”
However, Dan Tehan, Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment said smaller cruises had already resumed and the federal Government was consulting with the states and Territories and the maritime industry on options for the staged resumption of cruising when the medical advice says that it is safe to do so.
“As part of this work, the Government will continually review, on a monthly basis, whether the current restrictions on cruise ships can be safely lifted or amended,” Mr Tehan said.
“Australians have done their bit and got vaccinated and we want to see all our tourism operators, especially our cruising industry, back to doing what they do best as soon as possible.”
CRUISE BAN HURTING OTHER INDUSTRIES
THE lack of a clear date for the cruise industry to reopen in Australia has left an array of businesses providing support in the sector – ranging from specialist mechanics, high quality food producers and travel agents – with major concerns, as the industry weighs up an uncertain future after two years of crippling cancellations.
Graeme Blackman, the managing director of heavy marine specialists Inter-Marine, fears his business will go under within months without an opening date to revive it.
Mr Blackman, who said his business is Australia’s only “one-stop shop” providing support for all facets of a cruise ship, has lost 85 per cent of its turnover since March 2020.
“There are only three of us here in the office compared to 12 before,” Mr Blackman said from Inter-Marine’s Mortdale workshop.
He added it was “frankly incomprehensible” that ships were sailing across the world, but not from Australia, despite long-held state border closures tumbling and world-leading vaccination rates Down Under.
“I’ve been in the business 45 years and have friends in the industry across the world and everywhere in the world the cruise industry is back, except Australia,” he said.
“We have achieved a much higher vaccination rate here, however there seems to be no political will to allow the cruise ships back.’’
According to Mr Blackman, his business is just one of a massive workforce, including harbour pilots, tug boat crew, security staff, baggage handlers and even farmers, which rely on the cruise industry.
And, he says, many are now on their “last legs’’ in terms of carrying on without cruising.
“We are down to the bare bones,’’ he said. “Most of the staff are gone.
“I can probably survive until March or April (next year) but it’s grim.”
TRAVEL AGENCIES FLOORED BY DECISION
Travel agents have been left floored by the confirmation that Australia’s ban on cruise ships will roll on into the New Year, with hopes the industry would be revived in the first half of 2022 now crushed.
Meg Hill, a 20-year veteran of the sector who founded specialist booking agency Cruise Express two decades ago, has already had to slash more than half of her staff and three-quarters of her office space since March 2020.
She said the ongoing uncertainty after the federal Government’s confirmation the cruise ban would roll into February was a devastating blow.
“We had hoped that as our international borders have opened, as each of the states set reopening dates, that we absolutely also believed the pause on cruises would be lifted,” she said. “For that not to have happened, and for it to be rolled forward for another two months, it was devastating.”
The impact of the extension means the cancellation of cruise ships will push past two years. “Our business is 20 years old; at the beginning of Covid we had 25 staff and four locations — we now have 10 staff, pretty much all working remotely, and one location,” she said.
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, UNLIKE LOCKDOWNS
Diamonds are a lockdown-weary Australian public’s best friend.
“People have a lot of money that they want to spend,” Sydney diamond dealer and jewellery king Nic Cerrone said.
A lottery ticket winner recently walked into Mr Cerrone’s Castlereagh St store and spent $400,000 on a single white diamond set in a simple silver claw.
“Like a lot of our customers, they could not go overseas and they wanted to spend their money so they bought a diamond,” Mr Cerrone said.
And, unlike a holiday, he said a diamond was an investment that could be passed on to family members as an heirloom.
“A lot of our customers have not been able to go back to Italy or to Europe for two years,”
Mr Cerrone said.
“They have money to spend and want to make themselves feel good so they come to see us.”
In the lead up to Christmas, he said he had seen a lot of customers who were unable to go skiing in places such as Aspen in Colorado and were instead treating themselves to bracelets, diamond necklaces and signature earrings.
“That is one advantage of having the borders closed,” Mr Cerrone said. “But we need to keep open now because the last two years have been very hard for us.”
He has kept his jewellers employed in his workshop thanks to online shopping and making signature pieces such as The Everest Trophy for Racing NSW.
“We managed to keep our jewellers in the workshop and now we need everyone to come back to the city and support our local businesses,” he said.
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