£2.4bn poured into Britain’s coffers last year

Posted on 22 September, 2014 by Spacejunkie2

Cruise news

: £2.4bn poured into Britain’s coffers last year with more than 1m passengers getting on boardIndustry’s

contribution to country’s economy highlighted at Barcelona convention

Ship shape: the port at Southampton welcomes a cruise liner

The cruise industry contributed £2.4billion to Britain’s economy last year, with passengers spending an average of £80 a day each during visits to UK ports such as Southampton and Dover

Latest figures compiled by CruiseBritain show that in 2013 there was a 10% year-on-year increase in cruise embarkations, to 1.04 million, and a 20% increase in day visits, to 866,000. The spend includes crew expenditure, cruise line purchases, ship repair, and employee salaries.

“Cruise tourism is a valuable source of income to ports and destinations across Britain and is increasingly being factored into local and regional tourism,” said Daren Taylor, chair of CruiseBritain, speaking at the Seatrade Med convention in Barcelona.

In the Mediterranean, while other tourism sectors have seen no increase in performance, cruising has grown in volume by 43% since the global recession struck in 2008.

Across the region, there were 27 million passenger movements: 19 million in the Western Med, five million in the Adriatic, and – reduced by concerns over violence in the Middle East – three million in the Eastern Med.

Referring to the fact that most cruise calls to ports in Ukraine have been cancelled this summer, David Dingle, chairman of Carnival UK, said political conflict in the Black Sea area dates back centuries. “They are a fact if life we just live with,” he said.

A proposal to provide an alternative to dredging a new channel for cruise ships visiting Venice was submitted to the Italian government this week.

Lagoon show: a cruise ship sails past St Mark's Square in Venice — Lagoon show: a cruise ship sails past St Mark’s Square in Venice

A £101million floating jetty, capable of handling up to five ships at a time, would be set up in the sea near Bocca di Lido, and passengers would be transported into the city’s cruise terminal by a large, environmentally-friendly catamaran.

Carnival’s David Dingle still believes the deep channel proposal to be the preferred option, and told Seatrade Med: “What we want is certainty, but we want to do the right thing by all the stakeholders in this debate.”

Assembling the Anthem

Posted on 3 September, 2014 by Spacejunkie2

Dispatch, Meyer Werft shipyard: Assembling the Anthem

By Tom Stieghorst

Travel Weekly Cruise editor Tom Stieghorst is on a tour of the Meyer Werft shipyard where Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas, about two months from completion, is getting the finishing touches prior to its launch in November in New York. Read his dispatch here.

PAPENBURG, Germany — Imagine putting together a jigsaw puzzle five football fields long and 25 stories high.

That’s the impression generated by a trip through the assembly shed here at the Meyer Werft shipyard.

Anthem of the Seas under construction At the moment, the Royal Caribbean International ship Anthem of the Seas is the project that occupies most of the sprawling 450,000 square meters of enclosed space at the yard.

The complexity of the task is mind-boggling.

On a tour for media and a small group of travel agents put together by Royal Caribbean, we got to see firsthand how a ship is transformed from a pile of steel plates into a fully formed vessel.

The early stages involve cutting and welding thousands of plates together into sections, which in turn are welded together into blocks to form the ship. For each massive 30-by-30-foot section, pipes and ducts are added to the ceiling while the section sits upside down, which is easier than working overhead. The sections then are flipped over into proper position by overhead cranes.

Workers can finish about 25 sections a week, with 100 employees working three shifts a day. The process is speeded along by cuts preprogrammed into robotic lasers.

Once the sections are joined, they move into the massive block-assembly hall. Meyer Werft is the only cruise yard that builds its ship indoors. Managers believe that NASA’s space shuttle is the only vehicle built indoors that can rival a cruise ship in size.

Anthem of the Seas under construction About 60 blocks go into a ship the size of the Anthem. Once the blocks are built, it is easier to see how the parts will fit together as a whole. The bow and stern are especially recognizable, as is the ship’s bridge. The ship’s name is discernable in raised letters on the side and rear.

The giant, 300-ton blocks are built wherever there’s space. Later, huge overhead traveling cranes will lift each block into its proper position to give the ship its overall structure.

Along the way, 2,090 prefabricated cabins will be trucked from a nearby factory and bolted into place.

When that is done, the basin of the assembly shed is flooded and the ship is floated outdoors for interior fitting so that work can begin indoors on the next ship. The Anthem’s sister ship Quantum of the Seas was floated out of the building two weeks ago and is being prepped for delivery in November.

In final form, each 16-deck ship will measure 1,141 feet in length and 136 feet in width. In all of its complexity, the construction of a ship such as the Anthem takes less than a year and a half. The first steel for it was cut in August 2013; the ship is expected to be ready for guests in April.

Norwegian-Prestige deal raises prospect of UK deployment

Posted on 3 September, 2014 by Spacejunkie2

Norwegian Cruise Line’s acquisition of Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises will give it the courage to base a ship in Southampton or Dover, according to Norwegian chief executive Kevin Sheehan.

He said it was too much of a risk to commit so much capacity to the UK market when you have only 13 ships, but with 21 in the combined group, it would definitely be a consideration now.

Sheehan said the deal was financially beneficial but also brought other benefits.

“It helps us withstand economic situations like recessions – the type of customers who travel with Oceania and Regent have a lot of money and that top end of the industry weathered the downturn well.”

It also helps it become more resilient to geographical situations and makes it operationally “smarter”.

But he said “synergies” across the three brands would be created “behind the curtain” initially.

“Certainly for a period of time because we don’t want to do anything stupid, we will continue selling and marketing the three brands individually as it’s worked well and we don’t want to mess that up.

“I don’t want to keep changing strategies like Royal Caribbean has, so we will stay as we are for quite a while,” he said.

But he said sales and marketing teams for each of the three brands would start to share knowledge and best practice.

And commenting on Royal Caribbean chief executive Richard Fain’s recent declaration that he wanted his company to be the best, Sheehan added:

“He can say he wants to be the best, but the report card comes out once a quarter and then we will see who’s best.

“We are bringing together two excellent businesses. Norwegian has gone from being a joke in this industry to the best in class in terms of yields, operational profit and onboard spend. It’s very positive and is only going to become more so.”

Sheehan said the deal had been financed by raising cash, selling some equity and raising money from banks including JP Morgan, Barclays and Deutsche Bank adding that every other bank had fallen over themselves trying to be part of it as “they could see how compelling the transaction was”.

Sheehan said bringing Oceania and Regent parent company Prestige Holdings into the fold had always been on his mind, but talks had never got far.

“I brought it up a couple of times but it never really got going. It was always too complicated or things were happening and getting in the way, like launching ships or taking the company public.

“But then Frank del Rio and I started a romance – we went for dinner and got to where we are now. It’s extremely exciting.”

Sheehan said he was not looking for any further acquisitions in the immediate future.

“We’re a conservative group of guys and girls and our hands will be full for a while. Our focus now is to ensure we have a very successful launch of our new Norwegian ship, Escape, next year and of the new Regent ship in 2016.”