Posted on 11/26/2021 10:26:52 AM PST by Capt. Tom
Investors' holiday cheer received a rude interruption on Thanksgiving Day 2021: In South Africa, a new coronavirus variant is rising -- and it's terrifying investors with fears of a prolonged cruise industry recession.
So here's the news in a nutshell: On Thursday, South African Minister of Health Joe Phaahla announced that an investigation of "cluster outbreaks" of COVID-19 in parts of the country has found a new variant of the coronavirus
Initially detected in South Africa, reports CNN, the virus has also popped up in neighboring Botswana and in Hong Kong (carried there apparently by a traveler from South Africa). .
Responding quickly to the news, the United Kingdom banned incoming flights from South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Botswana, Eswatini, and Zimbabwe.
Suffice it to say that cramming thousands of tourists at a time aboard a ship at sea could be considered such a "super spreading event," and so it's likely this new variant will have a depressing effect upon any cruise activity involving South Africa. The bigger story, though, is that experience has shown that coronavirus variants that appear in one country don't stay there for long -- but spread, and become global events in a matter of months or even weeks.
In short, if investors in the cruise industry are feeling nervous today, there's good reason for that. In recent months, the cruise industry seemed to have finally found its footing, with multiple operators predicting that significant portions of their fleets would soon be operating again at something approaching full capacity. Analysts who follow the industry had even predicted that 2022 would be the year that Carnival and Royal Caribbean turned profitable again, and that Norwegian Cruise would follow suit in 2023.
Now, all that good news has been turned on its head, and everyone's scared again.
(Excerpt) Read more at nasdaq.com ...
I had to excerpt this article from a non -Cruising source to put IMHO, a realistic approach to the future of the Cruise Industry and the BILLIONS OF dollars they have borrowed and re-borrowed to get them through a pandemic lasting or 6 moths or a little longer, or so they thought..
As I speculated in previous posts the Lines should have adopted a cut back program in anticipation of a leaner future. But instead they went on a happy talk agenda, including pent up demand. Talking about the far future and painting a rosy picture of their future.
Time makes all things clear, and we will see if the decide to scale back their expectations for the future. -Tom
This thread was born for you.
Screw Royal Caribbean. Booked a cruise with them last May for this December, no COVID vaccine requirement. This August they made it mandatory, nobody in our party want to do this and they refused to refund our money. Had to have the credit card company intervene in order to get a refund.
“Had to have the credit card company intervene in order to get a refund.”
It’s good that you realized this can be handled with the credit card company. Some people probably don’t know that.
An alternative is to take the masks off, stop the social distancing nonsense and get back to normal life.
Same concern here. What is today’s fully vaccinated count ?
2 jabs or 3 ?
What will it be next fall ? 4 or 5 jabs to be fully. No thanks.
No significant travel business survived without stimulus. The cruise lines are not incorporated in the US so they got 0.
As for ignoring it all and living life, there’s no law of the universe that says a very special virus can’t arrive and chop off 50% of the global population in a year.
If it arrives then folks can ignore it and go out and live life, which won’t last long.
“I’ll take ‘reasons to stop virtue signaling vaccination demands’, for $200 Alex.”
“As for ignoring it all and living life, there’s no law of the universe that says a very special virus can’t arrive and chop off 50% of the global population in a year.”
My wife is a veterianarian who specializes in animal contagians. People in her field are terrified covid transfers to pigs and cows and other livestock and wipes them out enmass.
Covid wiped out 3 snow leopards in a zoo out West in a few days.
And they say you vaxtards ain't fearmongers.
It is a big hamster wheel—easier to just not get on the vaxx wheel than to try jumping off at some point....
You will be one of the “evil and selfish unvaxxed” either way....
“And they say you vaxtards ain’t fearmongers.”
I remember reading on this very site back in early 2020, covid was going to be a nothing burger and maybe a handfull of people dying from it at most.
I remember reading on this site just yesterday that the vaccine is safe and effective.
I’ve been receiving emails from Cunard for the last month or so. They seemed to be going back to a fairly normal schedule.
Why would you care about vax? It is dying after 6 months and Omicron likely won’t even need 6 months to breach it.
It’s not vax or no vax that people should care about. It’s Captain Tripps people should care about.
The point being that if a cruise line needs to have X ships sailing to stay intact, then their emergency plans would reflect staying that size. Can a cruise line go from (pick some numbers) 100 ships to 25 and stay in business, or does he overhead overwhelm operations?
It’s very hard to grasp, but nothing has to go bankrupt. The Federal Reserve can create money from nothingness, and it does so every day. The govt handed out money created to all sorts of industries, who took that money, declared it to be sales revenue, deducted costs from it and the remainder . . . PROFIT!!!!! Capitalism triumphs.
The cruise lines have to move their incorporation to the US or Federal Reserve created money will never be available to them.
As many here have done since, well, after "two weeks to flatten the curve" turned out to be a B-I-G lie!
Those ships will soon be up for sale. Musk and Brake can buy a couple each. Oh and Gates.
Brake ???? Bezos is what I typed in. Stupid computer.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.