"Tourist wave set to hit", "More cruise ships will visit Panama". These headlines from a local paper caught my eye this morning and I thought it would be a good idea to look into what affect the economic downturn is having on the cruise industry and how this might affect Panama. This is an important subject for our tourism industry because in July of 2007 I published a story about how fortunate Panama has been to attract Royal Caribbean cruise line to open a Home Port in Colon.
Here are some quotes from the story in the local paper La Estralia.
"So far Panama has made agreements with some 20 cruise lines, which means that at least 40 cruise ships list the country as destination. Some of the lines that visit Panamanian waters are Carnival Corporation, Celebrity Cruises, Cunard Line Cruises and P&O Cruises. The manager of Puerto Colon 2000, Augusto Terracina said that the new port infrastructures currently under construction, will be finished in December of this year and will be able to receive the Royal Caribbean cruise ship “Enchantment of the Seas” with its 1000 crew and 2,500 passengers."
Unfortunately the world economy is forcing the cruise industry to rethink its plans starting with just what to do with the many new bigger cruise ships coming on line over the next year. "A few years ago, when the cruise industry was looking at endless growth
and markets in Europe, South America and the South Pacific were on the
verge of coming into their own, cruise lines bulked up to meet demand. Now with the economy in turmoil and a lot of questions to be answered,
16 new ships ranging in size from 189 to 5,400 passengers with 34,000,
give or take a thousand, new berths are scheduled to be launched from
now until the end of 2009."
According to this article in USAToday titled "Financial meltdown hitting cruise ship bookings hard" the head of North America's largest chain of cruise-focused travel
agencies says the financial turmoil has resulted
in a sharp slowdown in cruise bookings.
"The last month has been very challenging for everybody," says Peter Thomson, chief operating officer of Minneapolis-based Cruise Holidays. "On a year-over-year basis we're down in the double digits."
And, Royal Caribbean Cruise line is making significant changes to its positioning of ships according to this USA Today story titled "Royal Caribbean pulls cruise ship from South America expands in San Diego". The mass-market line says it is canceling cruises in South America scheduled for 2009 and 2010 aboard the 2,501-passenger Radiance of the Seas and instead keeping the ship in San Diego.
Panama home port is designed to meet cruise ship demand of Central and South Americans and as long as the economy is growing in this part of the world, the cruise industry should see success. Panama has worked hard to get the commitment for this home port and the companies building it have spent millions to get things ready. Lets hope that it has not been in vain.
