Singapore is the latest country seeking to restart its
cruise and tourism industries. The government is reportedly looking to several
initiatives to aid the travel sector, including recently dropping travel
restrictions for tourists from New Zealand and Brunei plus adding Vietnam and
most of Australia to the list of permitted travelers.
The Singapore Tourism Board is also reportedly working to
restart the cruise and travel industries as it seeks to encourage residents to
begin to travel again. As part of the initiative, Singapore Airlines had
announced it would offer three-hour tourist flights round-trip from Singapore,
but those were canceled due to strong protests from environmentalists.
According to reports in Singapore’s Business Times, the
tourism board also issued a tender for assistance in establishing protocols for
the cruise industry to resume service. The newspaper is reporting that
Singapore will retain DNV GL to assist in developing the cruise ship health
protocols.
The reports say that the cruise industry will restart with
short cruises to nowhere sailing round-trip from Singapore. Ships will be
limited to 50 percent of capacity initially and they would be audited for
adherence to the safety and health protocols. It is anticipated that it would
be a three-month trial program, but no start date has been established.
Before the pandemic, Singapore was one of the most popular
ports for cruise ships in Asia. In 2019, the Singapore Tourism Board reports
that 1.8 million passengers passed through the port either on a cruise,
embarking, or disembarking. CLIA reported that Singapore experienced a seven
percent increase in port calls in 2019 to a total of 400, making it the busiest
individual port for cruise ships in Asia.
It is unclear if the current initiative would be focused on
regional cruise lines, such as Dream Cruises, which had operated from
Singapore, or involve the international cruise brands. Major firms, including
Royal Caribbean International, Princess Cruises, Costa Cruises, and others have
all based ships in Singapore. Several of the lines have cruise ships currently
laid up outside Singapore as well.
Singapore’s decision to explore cruises to nowhere would
follow a similar approach that Taiwan took to restarting the cruise industry
during the summer. Dream Cruises’ ship the Explorer Dream started cruises to
nowhere from Keelung on July 26 and as of late September had completed 22
cruises with more than 25,000 passengers. Similarly, in July, TUI also resumed
cruises from Germany aboard its Mein Schiff vessels offering cruises to nowhere
in the Baltic.