Having survived ill pandemic winds, global cruise leaders focus on carbon emissions cuts
Top cruise industry leaders at the Seatrade cruise conference on Tuesday claimed victory over the coronavirus pandemic, praising the industry’s resilience the past two years and vowing to steer their long-term efforts toward profits, growth and environmental sustainability.
“As we leave the health emergency behind, we must make the most of the momentum that we’ve built, and stay on course to capitalize on future opportunities,” said Pierfrancesco Vago, global chairman of Cruise Lines International Association, in remarks to the industry gathering.
Seatrade, the industry’s largest global conference held annually at the Miami Beach Convention Center, is back in its pre-pandemic form. It opened Monday and runs through Thursday. Organizers say there are roughly 8,000 attendees, nearing their previous average of about 10,000 people.
“Our presence today is a sign of our industry’s strength and resilience. It’s a testament to what we have overcome and a show of confidence in our ability to achieve more,” said Vago, executive chairman of Geneva-based MSC Cruises, praising the industry for having “risen to the challenge” of the pandemic “effectively.”
“Look at this, this is fantastic, just a great turnout,” said Arnold Donald, CEO of Carnival Corporation, who along with Vago joined a panel discussion of cruise company executives talking about the state of the industry. “You guys should all applaud yourselves. … It’s been a challenging time in a lot of ways, but a time the industry has gotten stronger and it’s positioned really well for the future.”
Subsequently, Donald, 67, announced that he’ll end his 9-year run as Carnival’s navigator on Aug. 1.
Representatives of the international cruise lines association, the industry’s largest trade group and lobbying body based in Washington known as CLIA, shared numbers to boost optimism for the battered industry. They predicted that 95% of the industry’s ocean cruise ships would be sailing by July. They said over 100 countries have reopened their ports to cruise ships and that the industry has moved 7.5 million passengers worldwide since cruising restarted in Europe in August 2020 after a pandemic hiatus. However, the restart only began in U.S. waters in June 2021.
According to CLIA’s most recent global market research, 84% of people who cruised last month said they would cruise again, which the group’s representatives say is a higher percentage than in 2019 before the pandemic. The group’s latest polling also revealed that 69% of people who have never cruised are open to it.
While industry leaders were quite optimistic about the future of cruising, there was little sentiment from the industry leaders Tuesday of responsibility or remorse for numerous superspreader virus outbreaks on cruise ships during the pandemic, which resulted in thousands of positive cases, passenger and crew deaths, passengers being trapped on board temporarily, and some crew members being stranded for months without pay.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had put a strict halt on cruising for over a year, and continued to issue travel advisories against cruising, including a high risk warning at the end of 2021 even for people fully vaccinated.
Vago said in an interview with the Miami Herald on Monday that he wouldn’t change anything about how the industry and CLIA responded to the pandemic.
“Really, I think we did a good job. It wasn’t easy to bring everybody together to agree. There was a moment of panic initially, where everybody started going their own way,” he said. “We did a fantastic job to bring back everybody together to sit at the same table to discuss with the authorities, whether it was CDC or any other authorities around the world. ... So I’m very proud of what we achieved as a community and as an industry.”
Global cruise lines are now focused on reaching their environmental goals. CLIA has pledged the cruise industry will get to “net carbon neutral cruising” by 2050, which is a promise to bring down cruise lines’ respective carbon footprints, either through technologies that remove carbon dioxide emissions from ships or doing things like planting trees to offset carbon emissions.
Previously, the industry has touted new ships powered by liquefied natural gas, or LNG cruise ships. Environmentalists say they’re better than petroleum-fueled ships, but far from perfect because LNG is still a fossil fuel. But Vago said that technology is evolving.
“As we speak today, 26 ships have been constructed and delivered that will be propelled by LNG,” he told the Herald. “It’s a journey, LNG ships could be fueled by biofueled LNG, which reduces emissions even more. LNG is also introducing us to new technologies like fuel cells.”
What many environmentalists would most like to see from cruise ships is the widespread adaptation of “shore power,” which allows ships to turn off their engines while in port and connect to the land-based electric grid, reducing emissions while docked in port.
Following a Miami Herald report in February 2021, PortMiami and Miami-Dade County committed to installing shore power “as expeditiously as possible.” The county has said that Carnival Cruise Line’s Terminal F is expected to have shore power by 2023.
“Shore power is a very interesting point. ... More ships have shore power capabilities, but the ports have to have shore power hook-ups. But it’s also a question of which power grid do you go to? Because in some places, the power grid is still connected to a coal plant,” Vago said in the interview Monday.
“There is a conversation going on with Miami-Dade County to bring shore power and ensure it’s connected to a grid that is from renewable energy. So that conversation is happening. In fact, MSC’s new terminal [at PortMiami] will have shore power. ... We’re talking about a couple of year max. If not even earlier, so it’s happening.”
This story was originally published April 26, 2022 at 7:30 PM.