Welcome Back to the World of Cruise
This month we are celebrating the return of destination cruising in both Malaysia and Indonesia; Southeast Asia’s first cruise port calls in over two years. Just a few weeks ago the Spectrum of the Seas arrived at Malaysia’s Port Klang in the early morning hours, and the following day in Penang. The CruiseAsia team was out and ready, excited to welcome passengers and crew who joined them on adventures into Kuala Lumpur City Centre & Penang, discovering the wonders of these two magnificent destinations.
It goes without saying the past two years have been very challenging, but Destination Asia fared better than most. Nearly our entire Cruise Asia sales and in-country operations teams remained intact and we used the time to develop new products and services and fine-tune our vision for the future.
But while Southeast Asia ports and destinations are open, the East Asia cruising comeback continues to stall. The impact of Japan remaining closed to international cruise lines means the repositioning of ships from Alaska to Asia at the end of their summer season won’t happen, and will instead reposition elsewhere. The impact of Japan, as well as another closed major homeport destination — Hong Kong — means adjacent cruise open destinations like Vietnam and Cambodia are also effectively cut off. While we see progress being made, we also see that time is running out for cruise lines to make decisions on where to position their ships next. Because of this, we continue to work closely with local governments and NTO’s on progressing this forward.
But this month is for celebrating, and that’s what we are doing. On behalf of the team at Cruise Asia by Destination Asia, thanks for sticking with us, it’s great to be back operating meaningful port calls again, and we look forward to our entire region opening up again in the not-too-distant future.
For more details on our cruise services across Asia contact Regional Director, Alvin Materi at [email protected]