2020 will be a year that many will want to erase from memory as soon as possible. Forecasts for 2021 look good with a vaccine approved in many countries and ongoing vaccination programs.
But what about the cruise industry? Are there reasons to hope for the year to come or are there still many pitfalls that cruise lines need to avoid?
We look at what challenges 2021 will bring, what cruise lines will need to do to overcome adversity and how long financial experts think it will take before the sector reaches pre-COVID operations levels.
Will vaccines protect the industry?
Many announce the arrival of vaccines as the savior for the cruise industry. However, this seems unlikely. The point is that cruise lines have enough challenges to overcome in which vaccines have little effect.
For now, vaccination programs are in the early stages of operation, and according to experts, it will take many months before a complete vaccination program is in progress around the world. The best scenario for reaching an effective level of virus interruption is autumn or winter 2021.
For cruise lines, the procedures and regulations to which they have undergone and the procedures implemented by the CDC will not disappear for another year.
Ships sailing with reduced capacity, 100% test, social distance, use of mask and electronic passenger surveillance on board will exist in the foreseeable future.
ANThey are seen by the uninformed as a floating Petri dish, the cruise industry will be under extreme scrutiny from the press, government agencies and the public in the future. Even after completing a complete vaccination program, it seems more than likely that cruise lines would choose to maintain at least some of the features that have been implemented.
The number of reservations is high, but it is a fragile balance
Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Carnival, MSC and many other cruise lines have recently made statements that reservation numbers for 2021 are high. And those numbers don’t just include people rescheduled for canceled trips; many are new reserves.
This is excellent news and confirms that public confidence in the cruise industry has not diminished. The saying that good memories last longer is a valid argument here, it seems. But, the balance is fragile.
The cruise industry will need to get all the details 100% correct all the time for the next twelve months if it is to keep that confidence high. Incidents on board a small ship as Seadream 1, right or wrong, have the potential to ruin all the hard work that has been put into it.
The fact is that the news of a false positive anywhere in the world would never gain such traction in the mainstream media. like the false positive on board Quantum of the Seas; this alone should be a valuable lesson for all cruise lines.
Cruise companies have a long way to go
Making predictions about when the cruise industry will have recovered is incredibly difficult while ships are not yet sailing. However, what will take years before we see a recovery from pro-coveted times seems to be right.
The number of passengers in 2020 was expected to exceed the 29 million passengers who sailed in 2019 by several million. For now, the projections made by Statista show that the number of passengers is unlikely to exceed 17 million passengers.
Only in 2024 will we see something similar to the numbers we saw in 2019. With ships sailing at 60-70% in 2021, even that number seems optimistic.
Cruise companies will need to maintain a balance between various extremes in 2021. On the one hand, cruise companies will need to ensure that all measures, protocols and regulations are carried out correctly.
Then again, the cruise lines must also ensure that guests can enjoy their vacation. Not a single guest waits to be policed on a ship, while guests at resorts around the world can take a vacation freely.
Read also: 15 best new cruise ships to start sailing in 2021
The resumption of cruises in Europe, Asia and the Middle East are positive points on the road to recovery. However, the absolute majority of cruises worldwide take place in the United States. Before the virus is properly contained and ships are sailing normally, we cannot say that the road to recovery has been trodden.
The road to recovery, as is often the case, is long and difficult. It seems that the road for the cruise industry is even longer and more difficult than for other industries, and it is a road that has the whole world looking at.
