With eyes wide open
By Virginia López Valiente
Managing Director of Cruises News Media Group and Editor of CruisesNews magazine
Editorial from CruisesNews magazine no. 52 – June 2020
Who would have thought, in the early hours of December 31st, with a glass of cava in hand, exchanging heartfelt congratulations, that in just over two months we would find ourselves immersed in a bad science fiction movie? In our arrogance, we had made countless jokes about the construction of a hospital in Wuhan in 10 days, about bats, pangolins, and colorful face masks. We also looked down with smug smiles at those who showed caution, concern, and even fear.
I was traveling in January and February, in contact with people of many nationalities, only to then witness the gradual, albeit reluctant, cancellation of all the trips planned for the first half of the year. And suddenly, that "thing" that was happening in China started happening in Europe. We watched, wide-eyed, equally shocking but much closer images of hospitals, healthcare workers in protective gear only seen in movies, and above all, the numbers started coming in—those numbers. And then they went and locked us down. We came to a standstill. How can our minds easily process that children are no longer going to school, we're isolating our elderly relatives, closing our businesses, and rushing to buy toilet paper?.
Despite all this madness, in our innocence we still thought it would all be for a few days, while you become a machine absorbing information, at all times, by any means.
And then one day we woke up to the news that the global cruise fleet was grinding to a halt. We've been shouting ourselves hoarse for the past year about how the industry was experiencing its greatest expansion ever, with over 120 ships on order, shipyards operating at full capacity, and an unprecedented schedule of inaugurations. Well, the ships are being delayed, launched without a godmother or spectators, and are now waiting docked for us to fill them with life.
Shortly before the lockdown, I had a run-in with a cruise ship detractor who vehemently blamed them for all the problems in his city. And look where we are now.
This situation isn't just a pause, it's much more than that. I'm also not sure if we've learned anything. I'm saddened to see that we're not rowing together—and we certainly have been!.
The return to the new normal for the cruise industry will be gradual; it is necessary to be able to absorb the changes, some temporary and many permanent, and most importantly, to restore consumer confidence, the traveler, to whom no one has yet addressed to explain that the cruise industry is working towards their safety.
