Cruises around the Southern African coast had an international ‘feel’, along with a local health profile, said MSC Cruises South Africa md, Ross Volk, during an MSC catch-up webinar.
Ross explained: “International travel will take the longest to rebound, but I wouldn’t classify us [MSC] as international travel, because we have two remote islands that are very easily quarantine-able, and we also have options for cruising South Africa-South Africa. 99% of our guests are South African and we would send a strong message that we wouldn’t be accepting people travelling from further afield than the provinces of South Africa.”
Looking to the re-starting of international travel, Ross predicts that there’ll be a ‘boom’ as soon as there is the opportunity to travel across borders, followed by a strong dip as those in a weaker financial position as a result of COVID-19 look to protect their income going into 2021. “Then you’ll start to see a steady increase from the second half of 2021, into 2022 and 2023,” he said.
MSC recently announced its 2020/2021 season, but there is still no certainty from government about when travel will open up. “As management, we decided to reconfirm the season – sales are open – and we would start to see what the demand levels look like. As expected, the demand levels are not where they should be, as South Africans are pretty scared, and rightly so.
“We’ll decide in late August, early September, once we have more clarity from the government, as to what’s going to happen in November/December and into the New Year. We’re also working on the itineraries for 2021/2022.” Ross added that safety protocols would be released to the public shortly, pending guidance from the EU.
An agent enquired whether passengers would be forced to wear masks on board ship, and Ross said this would depend on necessary clarifications from government. “The honourable president did a disservice by announcing that masks in public would become mandatory because, without the clarification of whether a vessel or hotel space is considered public, there’s limited guidance. In Switzerland and Italy there is no law that masks are mandatory on board vessels. Our current set of protocols is being developed in line with overall global standards.
“I haven’t seen anything making it mandatory, but that could change in the coming weeks on the back of the fact that we now have a law in SA that criminalises not wearing a mask, so we need more clarity from government.” Ross hopes it won’t be enforced. “I think it would be a very sad state if every time you had to go to a public space on the vessel, you had to wear a mask. I think that as big as vessels are, the biggest concentration of people is found in theatres, buffets and restaurants, and there are significant protocols around those to ensure that we are not going to expose people in those areas.”
*This article has been edited since its initial publication early this morning.
