With over 30 years of experience in the cruise industry, he possesses extensive knowledge of the cruise business and a broad background in senior executive leadership, having served as President of Costa Cruises from 2004 to 2013. Born in Italy, Mr. Onorato graduated from the Istituto Orientale in Naples with a degree in Foreign Languages and Literature in 1983, and subsequently specialized at the SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan and INSEAD in Fontainebleau. He began his career in the cruise industry in 1986 with Costa Cruises as Food and Beverage Manager before becoming Director of Cruise Products. From 1997, he served as Vice President and Director of Cruise Operations, overseeing logistics and provisioning, as well as all activities related to shore excursions, calls, and hotel operations.
Article from CruisesNews magazine no. 55 – December 2020
You have already experienced very difficult personal and professional moments. Even so, we imagine this is a crisis that was hard to have imagined. What has been the most challenging moment for MSC in these past months?
Without a doubt, our most difficult moment was having to halt our operations in mid-March. Of course, it was the right thing to do given the circumstances, but it was still heartbreaking. Just a few weeks earlier, such a move would have been simply unthinkable. I really can't think of anything more difficult for a shipping company than having to dock all its ships.
From that point on, we had to work on many immediate challenges, starting with getting all the remaining guests home safely from all the ships in our fleet. This was successfully accomplished, and then we moved on to getting our crew home to be with their loved ones. Many airports and national borders were closed, and this was a huge undertaking given that our crew comes from all corners of the world.
As a company, of course, we had to ensure our financial viability when, like all operators, we had zero revenue and, at the same time, we worked tirelessly on designing a comprehensive and robust health and safety protocol for a planned operational restart.
We are a family business, so we are agile and decisive, and we overcame those difficult moments faster than most, which allowed us to become the first major cruise line to return to sea in August in the Mediterranean.
MSC has proven that cruises can be conducted during a pandemic. We imagine the investment—both financial and in training, time, and human resources—has been enormous.
Clearly, it has. To sail safely and continue offering excellent cruise experiences in a pandemic environment, we've had to virtually overhaul our entire operations, both onshore and offshore, and the entire journey for our guests, from the moment they book until the moment they return home. The biggest challenge has been completely redefining all these processes while maintaining a product that is exactly what our guests expect.
This has, of course, been an incredible process for us, during which we've learned many lessons that will benefit our operations and our guests today, as well as in the future. Overall, we've improved our processes and our services.
Give us your assessment of the first MSC cruises from Italy. Have you considered offering cruises to the Canary Islands like TUI and Aida?
While many of our longer North Atlantic cruise itineraries have regularly visited the Canary Islands, MSC Cruises has not traditionally operated in this region as much as other cruise lines.
We are closely monitoring the situation in Spain and hope to see more regions open up to cruise tourism in the short term, especially Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, where we normally have a very strong presence.
Is Ocean Cay the most immediate and safest option for restarting cruises from the United States?
Managing an entire island destination clearly has its own advantages in the current circumstances. In this respect, private island destinations can make it easier for us to extend our ships' safety bubbles onto land, as there is no risk of our guests mixing with the local communities there. So, obviously, we believe this will help us when the time comes to restart service outside the US and North America.
While this will be an important element of our North American operations, as before, we will need open ports and destinations to offer excellent cruise itineraries throughout the region. We continue to work closely with U.S. and Caribbean authorities to ensure our return to service in the region as soon as possible.
What should we all do to restore consumer confidence?
When the pandemic began, we quickly found ourselves on the wrong side of public opinion due to some very sensitive situations that developed on cruise ships.
And yet, just a few months later, we were able to resume service in Italy with a robust health and safety protocol that gave our guests a much greater sense of security than they could have experienced on land, given the circumstances. In fact, having tested everyone in the terminal, our guests can rest assured that everyone around them on board has tested negative. They can also access a range of onboard services that are closed on land due to the second wave, such as bars, restaurants, and more.
This is the message that needs to be conveyed: despite the reputational challenges we faced at the beginning, I truly believe there is a great opportunity for cruises to emerge as one of the safest, if not the safest, holiday options.
And finally, give us your assessment and forecast for the near future. When do you think MSC will return to passenger numbers similar to those of 2019?
Clearly, we will only be able to return to 2019 passenger figures when the world has overcome this pandemic. While we have demonstrated that it is entirely possible to operate safely and offer excellent cruise experiences in the current context, the reality is that ongoing border closures and travel restrictions are having a significant impact on our ability to bring guests on board. For this reason, it will still be some time before we can return to pre-pandemic levels. Recent announcements regarding vaccine development have greatly improved the prospects for our full return to service, although the timeline will depend heavily on how quickly the countries and regions where we operate are able to implement their vaccination programs.
