KUALA LUMPUR: With Malaysia being such an important part of the Southeast Asian cruise product, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (RCC) is looking forward to the country’s cruise port development in the coming years which will also contribute to the development of better itineraries for the region as a whole.
The American global cruise company also views Malaysia has been a strong performer for its business in the recent years.
"In fact, Malaysia is now the fastest growing market for Southeast Asia, doubling between 2015 and 2016, and we expect a similar performance this year," RCC Managing Director, Asia Pacific Sean Treacy told NST Business.
Earlier this year, RCC has entered a joint venture with Penang Port Sdn Bhd (PPSB) to upgrade and improve Swettenham Pier Cruise Terminal (SPCT) in Georgetown, Penang, to accommodate berthing of larger cruise ships at its facilities.
Plans for the facilities include extension of the existing berths to 688 metres from its current
length of 400 metres, which will enable the terminal to berth two mega cruise liners carrying over 4,900 passengers each at any one time.
"In addition due partly to our longer Southeast Asian deployment this and next year, our calls to Malaysia have jumped from 66 in 2016 to over 80 for these two years," Sean said.
Further on the Malaysian cruise market, Sean said the strong growth is driven by its deployment of more ships, and newer and larger ones such as Ovation of the Seas and Voyager Class ships like Voyager of the Seas and Mariner of the Seas which come with innovative, unique features that are attracting a growing number of travellers in Malaysia.
Zooming on how RCC will be increasing its routes to cover more Malaysian destinations, Sean said the cruise operator are also working to grow its distribution network in Malaysia, improve agent training and drive more marketing campaigns and publicity and participate in more travel fairs and roadshows to create greater market awareness of cruising among consumers and agents alike.
"On the other hand, Malaysia as a destination has a natural advantage when it comes to cruise tourism.
"With a long coastline, a large number of islands surrounding the country and attractive destinations, there is plenty of potential for new cruise destinations and itineraries," he said.
According to the 2017 Asia Cruise Trends Report, in 2017, 66 cruise ships are being deployed in Asian waters.
Five of these are mega ships, with more than 3,500 passenger capacity, 13 are large with 2,000 to 3,500 passengers, 26 of the deployed ships will be mid-size, and 17 seasonal small upscale ships will be active in the Asian region.
To a question if Asian waters getting crowded based on this report, Sean said there are one or two new ships entering Asia every year on the average, and they are getting bigger and bigger, sized at 100,000 gross register tonnage (GRT) at the minimum.
"For instance, our Asia’s largest Quantum Class ships which are 168,666 GRT can call at over 30 North Asian ports but at only seven in Southeast Asian currently.
"In addition, the cruise port infrastructure in many parts of Southeast Asia are not adequate to
accommodate more ships, leading to problems such as bunching and even berthing at container ports.
"Hence they need to be upgraded urgently in order to accommodate more ships, larger ships and greater passenger loads," he pointed out.
Despite this, Sean said in Asia, the top markets for its Southeast Asian sailings are Malaysia, Singapore, India, and Indonesia, besides China.
"In fact, Malaysia is now our fastest growing market in this region, doubling between 2015 and 2016, and we have seen encouraging performance this year that we expect to match last year’s strong growth.
"Other neighbouring countries have also shown great potential for growth, such as Indonesia," he said.
Less than one per cent of Indonesians currently cruise, and with it being such a short hop over to Singapore to see multiple destinations in the region, and RCC foresee more Indonesians discovering cruising as an ideal holiday option.
Other emerging markets that are just starting to cruise more like Thailand and Vietnam demonstrate that the whole of Asia presents a wealth of opportunities for the cruising industry, Sean said.