Australian Cruise Ship Ban Extended… AGAIN!

Australia’s Cruise Ship Ban has been extended for another three months! No foreign flagged cruise ships are allowed into Australia until March 2021! The cruise ship ban started in March 2020 and will now continue through to March 2021 – making it close to a year where there have been no internationally flagged cruise ships in Aussie waters. The extension of the cruise ship ban was announced on 8 December by Australia’s health minister, Greg Hunt MP. The cruise ban restricts the movement of cruise vessels - for details see: https://bit.ly/3qAdVhL These strict measures have undoubtedly helped Australia contain and control COVID-19 throughout 2020. The country is now reopening domestically, with state borders expected to be open in time for Christmas and – at the time of upload - only 1 locally acquired case in the past 7 days – this info may of course change so I’ve linked to the Australian Health Department COVID snapshot here: https://bit.ly/2JKgHAu The extension of the cruise ban means the 2021 Australian summer cruising season has no hope of going ahead – which is typically the cruise industry’s busiest period. Cruise lines that are most heavily impacted by the cruise ban are those which undertake year round cruising from Australia. This includes P&O Cruises Australia – whose fleet of Australian based (but UK registered ships) were dramatically evicted from Aussie waters in 2020 – something I covered in a past video which you can check out in the info card or here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09qsXmYMl9Y For months now, cruise travellers and local cruise-related businesses alike had hoped domestic cruise voyages would be able to recommence in early 2021. CLIA – the cruise lines international association – recently commissioned Economic Impact Assessment which noted a significant impact by the COVID-19 cruise shutdown – impacting some 18,000 jobs that the cruise industry used to support in Australia. In a recent media release, CLIA Australasia Managing Director Joel Katz noted that the losses will amount so $2bn by the end of December 2020 – with a further $3bn at risk if the cruise pause continues into 2021 – I’ve linked to the release here: https://bit.ly/3gpD0at so you can read it in context. Cruise lines seem to have pre-empted the extension of the cruise ban to various degrees as P&O Cruises Australia had previously announced its cruise pause would last until at least 2 February 2020, while Carnival Cruise Line had pushed back its resumption of sailings aboard Carnival Spirit – currently not set to sail until May 2021 and Carnival Splendor which was scheduled to resume cruise sailings in early March 2021. While there is currently a lot of talk about vaccine approvals in the UK and USA – Australia’s vaccine roll out isn’t expected to start until March 2021. Despite this cruise industry setback, there are some limited cruising options for Australians – with a few Aussie-flagged cruise ships setting sail in recent weeks. This includes the small Australian flagged ship True North which is undertaking voyages from Fremantle, as well as Coral Expeditions Aussie flagged cruise ship Coral Discoverer undertaking voyages on the Barrier Reef and to Tasmania. — Image Credit: John Frame where noted. Music: YouTube Audio Library. — Visit me online: https://www.chriscunard.com/ #cruisenews #cruiseship #cruiseshipnews