A dip in cruise visitors would seriously affect our economy. The Bahamas depends heavily on earnings from cruiseliners which account for nearly 70 per cent of total visitors.
“One challenge that the industry is working through right now is the active hurricane cycle of the last two years, which has affected a number of important cruise ports,” said Adam Goldstein, President of Royal Caribbean International.
He said that makes it important to emphasise in marketing pitches that cruise ships have mobility, unlike hotels. There is also the flexibility to change itineraries so that the cruise is able to travel to other destinations.
“Even if there is a storm in the Caribbean, a cruise is a pretty sensible way to vacation in the hurricane season. But that’s not a message that most people understand,” Mr Goldstein said, which supports the rumour in the industry that “there is a softening demand for Caribbean products.”
A substantial percentage of the $20 billion that the cruise industry earns each year is dependent upon the Caribbean market. Up to half of some companies’ earnings, “or even more,” according to Mr Goldstein, is dependent upon the consumer demand for travel to the region.
According to reports from the US, investors in cruise travel are keeping a watchful eye on hurricane trends in the Caribbean. They fear that global warming may have permanently increased the number of hurricanes occurring each season.
Further, over the last year the cruise industry has been hit by other major misfortunes, including missing passengers, high oil prices, and more legislative demands over passenger safety.
“There’s been quite a cycle of publicity over the last 12 months,” said Mr Goldstein. This has put some cruise industry partners on the defensive to respond to scathing attacks on them, including Mr Goldstein who defended his company’s safety record after a passenger disappeared from one of Royal’s ships this month.
“There are extremely few incidents and accidents considering the amount of guests we carry in a year, which just in our company alone is three and a half million people every year,” he said.
Further, Mr Goldstein said industry statistics revealed that the chances of an unfortunate incident occurring on a cruise ship is about the same chance of getting struck by lightning, which is roughly about a one in 700,000 chance per year.
According to an interview in Travel Weekly, Robert Kwortnik, a Cornell professor, suggested that the cruise industry does not suffer financially, or otherwise, for too long from negative publicity as he said it is cyclical. Because “people tend to have short memories,” bad publicity blows over quickly.
By: BARRY WILLIAMS, Nassau Guardian Business Reporter
