Clean Cruising general manager Dan Russell says continued cruise season cancellations down under are “costing travel agents millions in lost bookings as Australia runs last in the cruise restart.”
Australian based travel agents are having to again wipe off hundreds of millions of dollars in forward cruise bookings as Australia was confirmed as coming a distant last in planning for the restart of cruising.
Dan Russell, General Manager of Clean Cruising in Brisbane who have been cruise holiday specialists for 14 years, said international cruise lines were progressively cancelling their cruise seasons in Australia because of border closures and travel restrictions.
Mr Russell said the slow vaccination rollout in Australia and the absence of a pathway being agreed for the resumption of cruising had created an even more difficult position for travel agents.
Hundreds of travel agents across Australia help customers book cruise holidays and, Mr Russell said, industry sources had advised that the cancellation of cruise line seasons would result in bookings worth hundreds of millions of dollars being lost adding to already challenging times.
“Each time a cruise line cancels their cruise season because of lingering uncertainty, we are back to where we were more than a year ago wiping cruise bookings worth millions of dollars,” Mr Russell said.
“Cunard and Holland America Line have already cancelled their Australian cruise seasons for 2022 and there is still no prospect of this nightmare coming to an end.”
Mr Russell said the world’s largest cruise company recently confirmed that eight of its nine international brands had resumed cruise operations in reopened overseas markets.
He said the company’s Australian-based cruise line, P&O Cruises Australia, was the only one of its lines that is yet to resume sailing.
“The cruise sector restarted operations from Taiwan in July 2020 and has safely carried more than 600,000 passengers since then. One year later, more than 60 ships have now returned to domestic operations in every other large cruise market, with strict health protocols in place. The overseas experience provides us with a successful playbook that can be adopted and further localised here, but these plans are in limbo.”
“Travel agents across Australia are caught in the middle of this apparent inertia,” Mr Russell said. “We are on a treadmill of cancellations that further endangers jobs in the travel sector and the future of many businesses.
“We know from cruise industry sources that hundreds of travel agencies with a cruise profile had already closed their doors and more must be in danger.”
Mr Russell said Brisbane’s success in securing the 2032 Olympic Games confirmed that progress and achievement can come from careful planning, and from government and the private sector working together.
“It would be excellent if we could achieve the same cooperative spirit to revive this key part of the tourism economy,” Mr Russell said.