October 26th - Cruising Conversations: The High Seas and Hipster Coffee
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 26 October 2023
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
I'm Simon Calder, coming to you from a trendy café, joined by Andy Harmer of the Cruise Lines International Association UK. We're chatting about the cruise industry’s impressive bounce back post-pandemic and addressing environmental worries. Andy sheds light on new ship launches and cruising’s rising popularity, plus we touch on the industry’s careful coordination with major tourist cities
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. |
| 0:08.3 | It's Thursday the 26th of October and once again I'm in a hipster coffee bar. |
| 0:13.7 | Where else would you find me? |
| 0:15.2 | I'm in the very good company of Andy Harmer. |
| 0:18.4 | He is the managing director of Clear UK. That's the Cruise Line Industries |
| 0:24.5 | Association and it represents all the cruise operators. And Andy, very good to see you. Here we are. |
| 0:32.5 | We've been in and out of a pandemic. Cruise was hit, I would say, probably harder than any other part of the travel industry. |
| 0:41.2 | How are things now? |
| 0:42.8 | Yes, good morning, Simon. |
| 0:44.0 | Yes, this year certainly has been a very positive one. |
| 0:47.9 | So if we look at the results from the first half of 2023, they look like they surpass our last record year, which was 2019. And it looks like |
| 0:58.0 | that trend is continuing. We are seeing more people trying cruise for the first time, which is how we |
| 1:02.8 | continue to grow. We've seen lots of new ships being delivered this year, 23 new ships delivered this |
| 1:08.5 | year. And the trend is certainly positive, both in terms of people |
| 1:12.8 | repeating cruise, so trying true cruises a year, for example, but also people trying a cruise for |
| 1:18.6 | the first time. I'm genuinely surprised by that, because clearly Cruz was one of the vectors |
| 1:25.4 | with which COVID was spread. |
| 1:31.2 | We saw, for example, the terrible site of Diamond Princess off the coast of Yokohama in Japan. |
| 1:33.4 | With many cases on board, there are other cruise ships |
| 1:36.2 | that spent literally weeks sailing trying to find a port of core. |
| 1:40.1 | And I thought that was really going to damage the industry |
| 1:43.9 | in the eyes of the travelling public. |
... |
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