The Caribbean Light

Covid-19: Its Impact in the Cruise Industry – The Caribbean Light

Foreign investment ‘by the back door’ is not the best way forward for Caribbean cruise destinations

By Nathan Dundas, Director, Caribbean Shipping Association

In rocky, dark and turbulent waters a lighthouse is a welcome sight.

As the cruise industry finds itself in uncharted waters, the Caribbean region stands as a beacon of hope and light for this vital industry.

A wise man once said: “To the making of books there is no end.” We can say the same with regards to the number of varied articles and comments on the cruise industry across the international online world.

It seems that everyone has a perspective on the cruise industry. There seems to not be a day, since the outbreak of Covid-19, that someone hasn’t written something on this topic; and it appears that cruiseships have become the ugly face of transportation.

The cruise industry haters and well-wishers have drawn the line and made it clear which side of it they stand. At this time everyone therefore knows by now all of the negative and positive comments on whether the cruise industry will recover or not, or which ones will go bankrupt or what form it will evolve into after Covid-19 as well as every imaginable scenario going forward.

This article is not geared towards adding to any of those predictions, but rather to simply look at this industry from the perspective of the region that has the biggest impact on cruise tourism – the Caribbean region.

A fundamental fact that cannot be disputed or argued by any of the commentators is that the number one market in the world for cruises is the Caribbean region. Tourism accounts for approximately 80% of all the revenues of some Caribbean countries and within that number cruise tourism can account for up to 80% of the visitor arrivals in some of those countries.

The biggest impact to be felt therefore is indeed going to be the Caribbean region which has more cruise visitors each year arriving on its shores than any other part of the world.

And we know the importance that cruise tourism has had on local stakeholders across our region. Thousands of individuals are employed in this vital sector ranging from taxi drivers, tour operators, vendors, duty free shops, shipping agents, ministries of tourism, port authorities and their staff, restaurant owners, bar owners, attraction sites, gas stations, small craft operators, service providers, hotels, airlines and we can go on and on.

Real Impact

These are real people not statistics whose lives are impacted in a real way from cruise tourism. It is interesting to note that when commentators talk about the cruise industry, they don’t ever mention the thousands of these people who depend on a daily living from this industry to provide for themselves and their families.

This dependency involves hundreds of thousands in the Caribbean region from this vital industry when we consider the spinoff of cruise tourism. We don’t hear the perspective of these hundreds of thousands of people reflected in all of the predictions of the cruise industry.

At the time of writing this article the Caribbean region is not as affected disastrously in the number of deaths from Covid-19 compared to Europe and other regions. We cannot predict the future so we don’t know how soon or when cruising will restart in the Caribbean or when the cruise lines marketing machines will start rolling again, but we are hoping that our individual countries will be ready and prepared.

Today as we all are still hunkering down from the effects of Covid-19, the silence is deafening from the Caribbean stakeholders as they worry about the future of an industry that seemed to have been secure and they have invested in for many years and for their future.

People's futures

We have a population of anxious and worried stakeholders in the hundreds of thousands who don’t know what the future holds for them as they engross themselves in any news as to the future of the cruise industry and their future as well. On any given day across the Caribbean’s popular radio talk shows you can tune in to from St Maarten to Jamaica to St Vincent to Trinidad to Antigua you will hear concerns expressed by local citizens.

A bright light showing the way forward amid the darkness is always welcome. I have been highlighting to several media houses in the Caribbean the role of two of our leaders primarily in giving hope to the Caribbean people.

Prime Minister Mia Mottley from Barbados and Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves from St Vincent and the Grenadines have both shown their character and mettle in their approach towards the cruise industry during this crisis.

I recall from the time that islands started to turn away cruise vessels over fears of spreading the virus to their citizens, Prime Minister Gonsalves was one of the first to call for calm analysis of the situation and for not going into panic mode.

Most outstanding, however, has been Prime Minister Mottley’s leadership and her approach towards the handling of this crisis in the wake of all the cancellations and rejections of cruise ships worldwide.

Prime Minister Mottley announced publicly that Barbados, was willing to facilitate passengers who needed to use the island’s airport to be repatriated by charter flights back to their homelands. The Prime Minister went further by even allowing cruise ships to seek safe harbor and anchorage in and off Bridgetown and ended up having over a dozen cruiseships around the port which were well looked after.

One of the highlights as we are talking about light in this context was when the AIDAperla, after seeking refuge in Barbados for over a month, when about to depart for Europe lit up the Bridgetown Port with the words “Thank you Barbados”. It was indeed outstanding to see that while the rest of the world was rejecting the cruiseship this little island provided the warm hospitality the Caribbean is known for.

This is the hospitality and warmness with which we look forward to greet the return of the cruise industry to the number one cruise destination of the world.

Cruise tourism looking forwards

We are aware that many projects and investment were poised to start in the Caribbean to enhance the cruiseship industry and will now be put on hold. However, we have hope that when the ships return to this warm and sunny paradise we will have millions of visitors to welcome.

The cruise industry has proven to be one of the most resilient in the tourism sector and no doubt will be making every effort to resume its presence in the Caribbean. They can be assured that the local stakeholders even more than the passengers will be ready to see them sailing into the Caribbean paradise again soon.

The cruise tourism product will change as with most things after Covid-19, but we can learn lessons from this pandemic. We have seen how the environment can be improved so the sustainability of our cruise tourism is maintained.

We have seen the benefits of practices of good hygiene and health etiquette so we will supplement these benefits along with the natural friendliness and hospitality of our Caribbean people to even further enhance our cruise tourism product.

We don’t immediately expect the number of passengers or ship calls to be as large as before Covid-19 when the vessels return to operation. However, the local stakeholders in the Caribbean from all of the various chat rooms in various associations we have been monitoring are eager to work along with the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) and the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA) to promote once again the paradise we have as the best cruise sailing region in the world.