‘Collaboration’ helps cruise sector overcome challenges
The cruise sector is enjoying high load factors and generally avoiding ongoing issues seen elsewhere in the travel industry thanks to collaboration, “tremendous” logistics and “a little bit of luck”.
Cruise industry veteran Peter Shanks, who has been the UK and Ireland managing director at Silversea Cruises for nearly five years, outlined reasons why cruise lines can be buoyant about the future during a Travel Weekly webcast on Tuesday (August 2).
Silversea’s parent, Royal Caribbean Group, revealed last week that load factors on June sailings were “almost 90%” and predicted they would increase to “triple digits by year-end”.
Elsewhere along the waterside, families enjoy picnics outside the Royal Palace, children scream with delight as they go head to head with tourists in a friendly game of football, and locals delve into Cambodian delicacies such as fried crickets and tarantulas. I try to soak in the sights and scents, overwhelmed by everything around me. This isn’t chaos as I know it in London, and there’s certainly no shoving to get on a Tube. In fact, despite hundreds of thousands of people descending on Phnom Penh for the Water and Moon Festival, there is complete harmony around me.