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Hello and welcome to the programme.

No need to remind you that the travel and tourism industry has been hit harder than most by the pandemic.

But at least hotels and airlines know that people will like to take holidays again as soon as they can.

But within the tourism sector,

the cruise industry has not just been wiped out for the year. It is also having to rebuild customer confidence after some well-publicised COVID outbreaks early on, notably on the Diamond

Princess, on which hundreds of passengers were infected, and sadly, at least nine of whom

died. Until that point, it seemed nothing could stop the industry. It was the largest growing

market within tourism. Then the cruise boom came to an abrupt end. So now the industry has

the challenge of restarting. It is certainly a case study worth watching

over the next few months of an industry picking itself up. And today we'll look at the problems

and possibilities facing it with two guests, with an array of experience within the cruise industry.

First up, let me introduce Ben Bolden, Vice President Europe, Middle Eastern Africa for Royal Caribbean Cruises.

Ben, let's just talk about the last year first.

I think going back to March 2020, it was clear things weren't well and the world had a

challenge on its hand. Being candid, I honestly thought it would be a couple of months at most,

and then we'd be back on the wave of success we were enjoying previously. We had 25 ships at sea,

just on the Royal Caribbean brand, and we had to quickly take a decision, obviously with the guidance of the CDC,

WHO, and obviously governments and around

the world to quickly suspend all operations and essentially bring all of our cruise programs to an end

and obviously get everybody home safe and sound. And then the ships obviously just had to park

them up, presumably. So there have been many ships around the world,

...