Has the Caribbean tourism industry woken up to the likely impact of EasyCruise this winter? TravelMole guest comment by Adrian Loveridge

I wonder if our regional tourism policymakers have even considered the potential ramifications of the November launch of EasyCruise, the budget cruise ship line.

Not just on the established cruise companies but also on regional airlines.

The proposed itinerary includes Barbados (two nights), St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Grenada, Martinique and the Grenadines.

All bookings are subject to a minimum of two nights at a retail cost of £9 (or about $16) per person based on two sharing a cabin including port taxes.

So, for instance, if passengers wanted to travel from Grenada to Barbados the cost would be $16 including two nights accommodation.

With Caribbean governments now charging up to $35 per person for airport departure taxes plus all the additional add-ons associated with intra-regional air travel like fuel surcharges, security and handling fees, VAT or other forms of sales taxes, airport enhancement fees etc, it looks likely many price conscious travellers will take a much lower cost option with EasyCruise.

And how it will affect the traditional land-based accommodation providers who simply cannot match an overnight hotel cost of $9 per person?

More new and larger cruise ships are about to enter service and with the Caribbean still being the largest area of operation, it seems inevitable there will some over capacity in the next year or two.

Combined with the low-cost concept of EasyCruise, which will find its own niche and clientele, the secondary effect will be to push prices of traditional cruises down.

Once again, this will put further pressure on land-based tourism which is already reeling from dramatic increase in operational costs over the last year.

Of course the positive effect will be to allow Caribbean people to move inexpensively between certain islands and avoid all the inhibitive costs now linked to travelling relatively short distances by air.

Quite how this will affect our already struggling regional airlines, it’s hard to predict.

But a consumer faced with a choice of travelling from one island to another, albeit at a much slower pace for $16 or taking the hopefully quicker flight option for $200-plus is now given a choice.

Looking at the market from an EasyCruise perspective, trying to maximise bookings from the UK and Europe, flight options showing existing scheduled air services into Barbados and other joining points have been listed on its website.

Bearing in mind anticipated demand, I think I might have a plan B.

London’s third airport, Stansted, offers an almost unparalleled choice of low cost connecting flights from a multitude of European cities, including 26 served by the associate company’s airline, EasyJet alone.

A once-a-week charter flight out of Stansted, timed to capture the maximum possible seamless connections from European cities, would help build a new market of travellers that initially thought the English and French speaking Caribbean was beyond their economic means.

One thing for sure, neither the established cruise or current regional airline industry is ever going to be totally the same after November.

*Barbados hotelier Adrian Loveridge is a former director and chairman of the marketing committee of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association. 

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