Ending the Cruise Ship Era !

Somehow the sight of the Ruby Princess making an indefinite stay in Port Kembla reflects on the disaster that has overwhelmed the cruise ship industry.  That ship - and man more around the world - are idle because one of the world's fastest growing tourist industries has suffered a setback from which it may not ever fully recover.

The world's shipyards have been churning out new and bigger luxury ships to meet the demand and in the Pacific those ship visits have delivered the life blood to many island communities. The arrival of several thousand passengers for a day visit injects the funds that makes visited cities exciting places. The onboard entertainment provided lucrative work for the musicians and show people tasked with keeping the passengers amused between ports.

When the Coronavirus story hit newspaper headlines the fate of passengers on cruise ships was a prime feature.  It progressed from the need for people to be locked in their cabins to achieve isolation, to ships being refused entry to ports because of plague aboard.  Like the " Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner ", some passengers envisaged being stranded at sea forever.

Those ships are now idle because the cruise trade has totally collapsed.  It is quite possible that many of the companies involved will not survive this disaster because their cash flow has been truncated. Even if the Coronavirus crisis came to a sudden end it is unlikely that many people will venture back to sea while that memory of disaster persists.  It is just too graphic - and too recent - to be easily forgotten.

It seems likely that we will have a glut of cruise ships and very few passengers.  No doubt the companies will engage in heavy advertising campaigns and cut prices to fill cabins but the trade will not replicate the numbers streaming aboard any time soon.  This reluctance to being stranded far from home will also be reflected on aircraft bookings for overseas holidays. This does seem to herald a golden dawn for the numerous holiday destinations within the Australian continent.  The eyes of Australian travellers seem destined to be concentrated within Australia.

The longer Ruby Princess remains docked in Port Kembla the bigger the wound to be suffered by the cruse ship industry.  These are ships with multi million dollar price tags and the cost of keeping them idle runs into huge sums each day.  A crew of a thousand will use it as little more than a dormitory  until the virus abates and their pay will sap company overheads.  The sight of it sitting idle at Port  Kembla will be an ongoing reminder to Wollongong residents of the  perils of an ocean holiday.

The only certainty about change is that when something ceases something new takes its place.  The travel industry will wait with trepidation to see what replaces a badly wounded cruise ship industry  !