Michael McCarthy joins headline session at Seatrade Europe

Cruise Europe chair Michael McCarthy took part in the state of the European industry session at Seatrade Europe in early September alongside Felix Eichhorn president AIDA Cruises, Herve Gastinel  ceo Ponant, Wybcke Meier ceo TUI Cruises and Marie-Caroline Laurent director general CLIA Europe with Mary Bond as moderator.

Discussions ranged from onshore power infrastructure and regulations to looking for new destinations to changing the way cruise interacts with local communities.

One topic highlighted by McCarthy was the disproportionate amount of bad press received by the cruise industry compared to cargo, and the need to be ready to counter unfounded and negative stories. “We have a huge piece of work to do together to get a proper message out. We need a contingency plan and have statements ready that we can release in the event of unfair press reports, for example recently in Amsterdam.”

On behalf of Cruise Europe members, he asked for more and accurate data to be made available by the cruiselines in this respect, whilst acknowledging that the CLIA ‘tool kit’ is a good first step. 

In terms of onshore power he noted that supplying a ship with 12mW for a long period of time may not be feasible in many ports due to grid connection and that the costs of supplying OPS can be three times higher than from onboard generated power.

He again asked for more information from the industry to assist ports in being realistic about what is, and what is not, feasible in terms of building suitable infrastructure as well as the regulatory “sustainability” framework that changes from country to country.