Singapore plots cruise recovery as region resumes ship calls
Tom ParrySouth-east Asia has welcomed its first cruise call in more than two years after Royal Caribbean International’s Spectrum of the Seas arrived in Malaysia’s Port Klang on Friday (1 July).
Genting Dream is scheduled to dock in Indonesia’s Batam and Bintan islands on Saturday and both ships will homeport in Singapore.
Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia are the first countries in the region to resume calls since cruising was halted globally in March 2020 amid the onset of the Covid pandemic.
The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) predicted ongoing “positive discussions” around ramping up calls, coupled with an alignment of health protocols, would see a return to pre-pandemic cruise levels between 2023 and 2024.
Keith Tan, chief executive of the STB, called the resumption of ship calls “an important milestone” for Singapore and the wider region.
Pre-Covid Singapore welcomed more than 400 ships across 30 brands in 2019, with year-on-year growth of more than 1.8 million passengers that year.
Since Singapore restarted cruising in November 2020, over half a million passengers have sailed on nearly 370 “cruises to nowhere”.
“Singapore will continue to work with our counterparts to strengthen the region’s attractiveness as a cruising destination and source market,” said Tan.
The STB said it was working to rebuild its ship deployment programme and was in discussions with lines to expand their customer bases from local markets, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, to longer-haul sources including India, Australia, Germany, the UK and US.
Angie Stephen, Royal Caribbean International’s vice-president and managing director of Asia-Pacific, said the line was looking forward “to developing more exciting itineraries” for its guests in the region.
The STB called fly-cruises “a key growth area” to its plans expected to “rebound strongly” now Singapore had reopened its borders to all fully vaccinated travellers.
Before Covid, around 70% of Singapore’s cruise passengers were international visitors travelling to Singapore to take a cruise to explore South-east Asia.
To fuel the return of fly-cruise travellers, the STB said it would continue to offer its Cruise Development Fund to encourage lines to homeport.
The STB also called on travel agents to tap into the grant money to market cruise packages and fund promotional campaigns showcasing Singapore.
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Tom Parry
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