Royal Caribbean CEO Provides Updates on Vaccines, the CDC and More

Royal Caribbean Group Chairman and CEO Richard Fain addressed a variety of questions from travel advisors during the March 24 “Coffee Talk with Vicki Freed,” including vaccine requirements, a loan program for travel advisors and a new sense of momentum.

Royal Caribbean International is requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccinations on adults boarding its new cruises from Nassau, The Bahamas and Bermuda. The vaccination requirement is controversial since many in the country are leery of getting the shot.

Fain said the vaccine requirement is determined on a case-by-case basis in cooperation with local authorities, but the mandate could be changed or eliminated as time goes on.

“We have four ships now operating with no vaccine requirements,” Fain said, referencing ships operating in Singapore and the Canary Islands. “We just announced two series of new cruises and they’ve all said initially we will start with vaccines required for adults and testing for children. As science continues to progress, we will change and adjust to that. These cruises don’t start until June. They’ll start on this basis, with vaccines required, but that could change tomorrow.”

He touched on discussion with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the conditional no-sail order in place since October.

“Interestingly, it calls for a four-phase process, and now we’re four months into it, and we’re still in phase one and don’t know what’s required for phase two,” Fain said. “Science has moved ahead of the conditional no-sail order. Back in October last year, we thought that was a very positive move by the CDC, but now it’s time. We and our Healthy Sail Panel and others in the industry feel that it is time to move on in light of dramatic changes we’ve seen in three areas – vaccine, testing and contact tracing. ... The time has come to acknowledge the changes in medical science and move forward.”

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He noted RCG brands have successfully returned to cruising without a vaccination requirement with the Quantum of the Seas in Singapore and three ships operated by its joint venture TUI/Hapag-Lloyd, all in the Canary Islands.

Americans sailing on those or the new Bermuda and Bahamas summer cruises will be given COVID-19 tests onboard the ship at no cost, so guests will have the documentation needed to reenter the U.S., said Freed, the line's senior vice president of sales, trade support and service.

Another interesting note: Fain said many feared that first-timers would not try out a cruise after the early days of the pandemic and that only loyal cruisers would return.

“It simply isn’t true at all,” he said. “In Singapore, 80 percent of our guests are first-timers. In Germany, Canary Islands and Greece, the percent of first-timers is actually at or above where it was pre-pandemic. People are fed up. Pent-up demand is there, and we need to capture that.”

One travel advisor asked Fain if there would be a Europe season this year. His answer: there’ll be some sort of season, but it won’t be the same.

“Already we’ve started announcing some of those, our TUI brand is already operating, MSC and Costa are operating out of Italy, and you’ll see us operating from Israel to Greece, so yes, I think there will be one,” he said. “Obviously, it’s not going to be a normal season.”

Yet people are going where they have the opportunity to cruise, he said. “I found it remarkable, that in certain categories, we’re on waitlists already, and we just opened this.”

When asked about the possibility of an Alaska season, Fain admitted things are less clear. “We and others are working on it. I don’t think I feel confident enough to make a prediction on whether we and they may be successful. But we’re working on it.”

Fain also touched on the RCL Cares program, which announced a $40 million financial aid program for travel advisors suffering during the pandemic with loss of business.

“We said we had to do something to help,” Fain said. But the company soon found the difficulty in navigating the red tape of lending money.

“There are so many regulations dealing with lending,” he said. “In our case, we didn’t want to do investigations, didn’t want to charge interest, we just wanted to put money into the hands of people who needed it. There were so many regulations, and you need to be licensed to lend money, so what we’ve tried to do is find a bank to, in effect, act as an intermediary, but it’s proven to be very difficult. I think we’re just about at the finish line ... to offer a small lifeline” to the travel advisor community.