Travel Agent - August 27, 2007 - (Page 12) Vital Signs Hurricane Dean Gentle on Cruise Industry The strong winds of Hurricane Dean haven’t been enough to knock out cruise operations in the Caribbean and Mexico, yet the lines and travel agents alike hold their breath as the hurricane season shifts into high gear. While the storm has forced cruise lines to make small tweaks to their itineraries, it hasn’t caused any widespread cancellations. As of press time, Royal Caribbean (www.royalcaribbean.com) had only slightly altered two itineraries—one on Enchantment of the Seas, the other on Rhapsody of the Seas. Freedom of the Seas moored in Jamaica last Wednesday, only two days after Hurricane Dean slammed into the island. Meanwhile, Carnival Cruise Lines (www. carnival.com) replaced a smattering of port calls for 12 of its ships in the region with others, to avoid the path of News You Can Use Enchantment of the Seas is one ship that tweaked its itinerary the storm, but no full-on cancellations were necessary. Cruise lines charted the storm’s movement and made adjustments to steer clear. Agent Reaction Back at home, you would expect a hurricane in the Caribbean to trigger worry and fear in the hearts of travel agents. It’s not that they aren’t concerned, but if Hurricane Dean is any indication of what is to follow, then agents have every right to be optimistic. “It’s been pretty uneventful right now,” says Cindy Kingsley, office manager of The Travel Gallery in Hobe Sound, FL. “Nothing really at all to speak of. There hasn’t been one cancellation. One guy came in to pay for a cruise to Jamaica in October, but decided a week later to switch to an eastern Caribbean itinerary. I said, ‘You know there still could be hurricanes.’ He didn’t care.” It’s been more of the same for Michelle Fee, CEO of Coral Springs, FL-based Cruise Planners. “I haven’t heard anything,” she happily reports. “It’s business as usual. We haven’t even got any messages from the cruise lines. When it doesn’t come close to home, it doesn’t matter as much to people.” Fee makes an interesting point. Unlike hurricanes Katrina and Wilma, Dean has not hit the U.S. mainland, causing Continued on page 16 Hurricane/Tourism Continued from page 10 resumed as normal to most Caribbean destinations. For a complete list of Caribbean property assessments, visit www. travelagentcentral.com/hurricanedean. Report From Tour Operators Travel Agent learned that many U.S. operators sending clients to the Caribbean reported Hurricane Dean had very little—if any—impact on business since the storm first struck last week. According to operators we spoke with, many clients changed their vacations as soon as the hurricane warnings were issued, most rebooking for different dates. Some still decided to fly, and the ones who cancelled will most likely book through the same operator when they do decide to commit to another date, says John Hanratty, chief marketing officer for Travel Impressions (www.travimp.com). Travel Impressions had about 2,000 clients whose Caribbean vacations were affected, Hanratty says. Of those, onethird rebooked immediately. The remainder were either already in the Caribbean, covered under travel insurance and rebooked another trip when they got back, and the others canceled, but are expected to rebook. Eight Apple Vacations’ (www.appleva cations.com) charter flights from various gateways were took off for Cancun International Airport on Wednesday morning after an original planned Tuesday take-off, and a full flight schedule resumed on Thursday. “We didn’t really see much of an effect at all,” Apple Vacations’ Senior Vice President Tim Mullen told Travel Agent. “Many of the big destinations we send clients to were able to escape with little damage. So everything is back to normal.” The Case of Martinique The tourism-related infrastructure of Martinique received no major damage, but the storm did do massive damage to the economy, wiping out the island’s entire banana crop, Muriel Wiltord, director USA and Latin America for the Martinique Promotion Bureau/CMT USA, told Travel Agent last week. She says the island’s key tourism players had an emergency meeting to discuss marketing strategies to significantly increase the number of visitors for next year, since tourism and bananas are the island’s two main sources of income. “There’s certainly more pressure for us to increase tourism because we have to make up some of the money we lost with the bananas,’ Wiltord told us, noting the crops take nine months to harvest. Also, many of Martinique’s rich greenery, such as its tropical gardens and forests, were damaged. —Joe Pike 12 TravelAgent August 27, 2007 http://www.royalcaribbean.com http://www.carnival.com http://www.carnival.com http://www.travimp.com http://www.travelagentcentral.com/hurricanedean http://www.travelagentcentral.com/hurricanedean http://www.applevacations.com http://www.applevacations.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.