Royal Caribbean buoyed by demand as it prepares base here

The demand for cruise originating in Barbados has surpassed the expectations of Royal Caribbean International executives as the cruise line prepares to make Bridgetown a homeport for one of their vessels later this year, according to president and CEO Michael Bayley.

Bayley disclosed that bookings for the cruise line’s vessel scheduled to originate in Barbados have been on the rise, especially among Britons.

Royal Caribbean cruises are expected to start sailing in the Caribbean from around mid-July, and for the first time, the cruise line will homeport out of Bridgetown starting in December, with three 7-and14-night Southern Caribbean itineraries aboard its Grandeur of the Sea vessel.

The cruise line, will also homeport out of Bermuda later this year, following that of St Martin and the Bahamas.

“All of those ships have been doing very well. There has been good demand for those ships so we feel encouraged by the bookings that we have seen for them,” said Bayley.

In fact, he said: “I can tell you one product that has really exceeded our expectations is the product sailing out of Barbados later in the year, where we saw fantastic demand out of the UK market. We thought we would get good demand out of the US and UK, but the UK was just great”.

Bayley opted not to give figures but said he anticipated customer demand to be one of the main drivers of whether any of the homeport destinations remained a long-term home port for the cruise line.

“We have a formula – we have great people, good marketing, good distribution and good communication – and we put the product in the market and customers look at it and they buy it or they don’t. That is really the key driver of this decision,” he explained.

“I think it is going to be very interesting to see how these products with the homeporting in the Caribbean do,” he said.

Bayley was responding to questions on Wednesday during an online one-on-one session with Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) Communications Specialist Johnson Johnrose on COVID-19 Lessons.

Describing homeporting as a “logistically complex proposition”, he also pointed out that airlift and where they come from; supplies; fuelling; and mechanical and engineering support also influenced such a decision, as well as supporting infrastructure including accommodation, transportation and restaurants.

Royal Caribbean International has some 25 vessels, 14 to 15 of which are operated in the Caribbean year-round.

Bayley noted that during the winter months more ships are usually added to the Caribbean itinerary and when cruises resume that would be no different.

He said Royal Caribbean was having discussions in different destinations on how to better utilize local products, as he singled out the Bahamas as one such example where the cruise line is seeking to use the pepper sauce produced there on its ships around the world.

He gave the assurance that as cruises resume in the Caribbean there will be a heavy focus on safety, pointing out that Royal Caribbean International had been working closely with the nine-month-old Americas Cruise Task Force on the harmonisation of protocols among countries and cruise ships.

However, with COVID-19 situations across the region constantly changing, Bayley, who is co-chair of the task force along with Prime Minister Mia Mottley, quickly pointed out that “now with vaccines, that is beginning to shift, so we see, for example, the [US Centres for Disease Control] is cautiously relaxing many of the rules and regulations because they have the science and data… so one of the things the industry has committed to is to fully vaccinate all of our crew members”.

He also pointed out that since January of this year Royal Caribbean data alone showed that over 80 per cent of all bookings for cruise travel in 2021 and 2022 were from customers who have already been vaccinated.

Bayley gave the assurance that Royal Caribbean will be guided by the health experts and countries on the rules for disembarking passengers, adding that crew members and all adult cruise passengers would be vaccinated.

He said in the case of crew members who did not want the vaccine they would be subjected to more regular testing.

Looking at what would be required for the cruise industry in the future, he highlighted port development and more personalized experiences as being crucial, while indicating that the Caribbean remained a major cruise destination and he did not see that changing.

Bayley explained that increasingly more people were seeking “unique braggable moments” since they were always on social media and were looking for new and unique experiences to post.

Acknowledging that it was still a very difficult and
complicated time for governments in the region, he said “at the end of the day the one thing that is really important is continuing the journey to make your community and destination as safe as you can… and preparing people for the return to some kind of ‘new normal’”.
(marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb)