Nearly two years after the start of the pandemic and following months of intense negotiation to establish regional COVID-19 health and safety protocols, cruise lines are returning to the Caribbean, the business' primary region of operations.
Over the past month, operators have announced plans to return to some of the region's most popular ports. Royal Caribbean International will resume cruise calls in Jamaica, which recently announced it would reopen to cruise ships beginning in November. Carnival Corp. brands will make more than 110 visits to Jamaica between October 2021 and April 2022.
The Turks and Caicos' Grand Turk Cruise Center will reopen in December following nearly two years of post-pandemic inactivity. Those openings follow the post-outbreak resumption of operations at the cruise ports in Antigua and Barbuda and Belize, where Celebrity Cruises' Celebrity Equinox and Norwegian Cruise Line's Norwegian Gem, respectively, resumed calls in August.
Yet despite these and other service resumptions, U.S.-based cruise lines' overall deployment remains at a fraction of pre-pandemic levels. Last month, executives at the industry's largest operator, Carnival Corp., said the company is operating only 50 percent of its previous fleet.
A Cruise Lines International Association spokesperson told CNN earlier this year the organization expected 49 percent of member cruise fleets to return by the end of September 2021. The spokesperson added she expects all CLIA-member line ships to resume operating by 2022.
It's difficult not to think of the reduced deployment's significance in relative terms. When I worked as a CLIA public relations official beginning of 2003, the industry's leaders were charting a growth pattern that would complete cruising's transformation from a niche product for wealthy travelers to a mainstream vacation option.
Top executives often pointed out that despite its tremendous growth since its late 1970's origins, the cruise industry's combined bed capacity did not match that of any one major hotel company.
The way they saw things, there was always plenty of room for growth. More berths and ships meant more potential profits for cruise lines (and cruise-selling travel advisors).
Now operators find themselves beginning again at one-half of their previous operating capacity, at least through 2022. Many lines are also operating with smaller fleets as lines shed ships following the outbreak.
How will the post-outbreak environment impact the cruise lines' ability to return to previous capacity levels? If the last two years have taught us anything, it's that the future is unpredictable.
The human terms of the dilemma are more easily identified, particularly in ports where cruise activity is a critical component of the national economy. I walked around the Tortola Pier Park at the British Virgin Islands cruise port in June, prior to the resumption of cruise activity there.
I chatted with several retail store vendors, whose stores full of merchandise were empty of the cruise-ship customers that filled the aisles in pre-pandemic years. It wasn't difficult to sense their despair at livelihoods wracked by the absence of travelers.
During a September national address in the Turks and Caicos, Charles Washington Misick, the country's premier, said his government is providing grants to eligible operators that "depend on the cruise industry for their livelihood" as they prepare for the reopening of the cruise industry.
The list of eligible parties reveals the spectrum of services whose employees rely on cruise activity: water sports, taxi and tour operators, excursion providers, golf cart operators, beach and cabana vendors, wedding planners, massage therapists and Grand Turk Cruise Center retail stores.
A rough estimate based on the cruise deployment numbers suggests about half of the previous cruise-reliant Caribbean workers may be unemployed or have moved on to other pursuits. Will those businesses and workers return as cruise fleets seek to rebuild to previous scale?
As with much connected with the future of Caribbean cruising, we'll just have to wait and see.
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