Continuing & Building a New Tradition with BA’s Bulletins.
It has been a while since our BA team ventured forth and sent out a cruise bulletin, mostly focused on Covid-19 and the cruise industry recovery. Today, we share our first bulletin in a while, and also believe it is a suitable time to continue these bulletins focusing on topics ranging from port and destination infrastructure to consumer demand and market growth, vessel new buildings, and a variety of other topics such as terminal and marine modeling, intuitive terminal design, sustainability, environment, and others.
Thus, with this in mind, should any of the readers of the cruise bulletin wish the BA team to write on a specific topic, please let us know, and we will do our best to meet the challenge. However, we will stick to what we know and not venture too far afield from our core competency in the cruise and maritime sectors. We are looking forward to propelling the cruise tourism and port industry forward. The BA team hopes to see you at Seatrade Cruise Global, here in Miami. Visit us at Booth 1212.
Sincerely,
the BA Team.
Cruise Industry Today
We have all heard the news: the CDC has dropped all warnings attached to cruising since the beginning of the pandemic and no sail order on March 14, 2020, leaving it up to the cruise consumer to decide whether they feel safe getting on a cruise ship for a holiday adventure.
This is good news that validates the arduous work, cooperation, and flexibility of everyone in the industry who implemented (and reimplemented) rigorous public health measures, shoreside and onboard, to ensure a safe and healthy cruise experience. A job well done to not only cruise lines, but ports, tour operators, crew, passengers, and a myriad of behind-the-scenes port agents, operators, stevedores, and others who have persevered during the last two years.
This news will further propel the large-scale recovery already underway. In April, ~280 ocean-going cruise vessels are expected to sail. This equates to over 500,000 berths now in operation (~80% of the global fleet capacity). Based on resumption announcements to date, 95% of the global fleet capacity will be sailing by August. (Be sure to check out BA’s Cruise Recovery Dashboard for the latest figures.)
What does that mean for actual passengers? The major factor in summing total passenger participation in the cruise industry will be not only the available berths in the market but the actual occupancy rate onboard for each sailing. To date, those have ranged from 35% to 100%+, dependent upon the brand and destination.
As the year moves ahead, pandemic fears subside, and travelers begin to increase in their holiday participation levels, the industry could see somewhere between 19.2 and 27.3-million cruise passengers by the end of 2022. However, due to ongoing resumption efforts and onboard occupancy brand-imposed limitations, actual passenger volumes will not reach 2019 levels until late-2022 or the first half of 2023.
Carnival resonated these thoughts in their Q1 2022 earnings call. They confirmed they had 40-plus sailings with occupancies exceeding 100%, and for future bookings, they have “a lot of sailings at 100%, which is showing that things are returning to business as normal”, and that they “have the ability to sell at 100% with protocols and still serve the interest of public health with really good outcomes from a health and safety standpoint.”
Since resumption, Carnival Corp alone has delivered 2.2 million cruise vacations and counting. During its last quarter alone, it carried over 1 million guests, with the anticipation of carrying nearly 14 million guests in 2023.
Prepare for the Future
The industry is well on track to pick up its successful trajectory in the coming year. Ports and destination partners will continue to be at the forefront of infrastructure development to support cruise tourism growth and deliver a valuable shoreside product and services and do it in a way that preserves the individual destination’s sustainability and integrity for future visitors; making it so consumers and cruise lines want to come back for more! Stop by BA’s booth (1212) at Seatrade to discuss more about the industry’s recovery and how BA can help you prepare for the industry’s successful future.
The BA team is the leading cruise destination and port planning and development firm worldwide. With projects located on six continents and its world-renowned expertise in cruise, cargo, and port operations, we stand as a global leader and one of only a handful of Cruise Facility Architectural Design, Marine Engineering, and Planning firms responsible for shaping the way waterfronts operate and respond to the diverse and complex needs of the cruise industry.
BA has played a key role in the development of cruise port facilities by delivering innovative solutions to the growing travel demands of the world’s seaports to meet the needs and expectations of the cruise industry and its passengers. We understand cruise destination facilities from all facets of operations, including financials, design & development, cruise line strategy, port operations, navigation, security, Customs, Immigration & health quarantine, environmental, sustainability, and community interests.
Additionally, BA leads the world in the number and breadth of cruise market assessments performed for countries, ports, cities, tourism boards, cruise associations, private entities, investors, and port/terminal operators. For more than 20-years, our team has forecast cruise passenger movement and berth demand as part of major strategic planning efforts, cruise facility development, tourism development, and financial analysis worldwide.
