Royal Caribbean Group Chairman and CEO Richard Fain has a new video update where he says he is done talking about the Covid-19, and it's time to move on.
The new video update is aimed at travel agents, but provides important insight into what he and the cruise line are thinking about at the moment.
In a new video update, Mr. Fain shares why now is the time to look past the pandemic and focus on cruises in 2022.
In fact, Mr. Fain declared he is going to stop talking about the disease, which is in itself significant since he began issuing these video updates during the cruise industry shutdown due to Covid-19.
"The time has come to look forward," Mr. Fain firmly stated. "The time has come to focus on how we come out of the panic and out of the pandemic, rather than how we should live during it."
"We all need to think differently. Our future becomes clearer every day."
Mr. Fain's message comes as the Royal Caribbean Group has re-opened its headquarters in Miami. While the disease will remain a concern, he feels society has a much better grasp on it becoming controlled, especially with children on the brink of being able to get vaccinated.
"It will continue to produce variants that vex us, but now we understand the main drivers. We know how to control the disease as it moves from totally uncontrolled spread with a high level of fatalities to a more ubiquitous, ongoing disease that impacts a declining number of people."
"There are likely to be more variants, but they are not likely to upset our ongoing progress, and all of this progress still isn't going to eliminate COVID, but it should bring it down from being a terrifying pandemic."
Mr. Fain also shared a recent map of Covid cases by county in the United States, and contrasted the case loads to cruise ships, which he believes have an advantage over land based comparables.
"The vast bulk of the people are vaccinated. We can control our sanitation, including air filtration, etc., and we can establish strict protocols. As a result, we can make ships safer than shore based alternatives," Mr. Fain explained.
"Although the CDC doesn't do a comparison, I believe a fair reading of all the data taking into account all the factors would color this ship blue, which is the lowest category of risk. Certainly better than the bulk of counties in America, and that's why I'm going to stop talking about the disease."
Mr. Fain also talked about a surge in new bookings coming from online rather than travel agents. To that point, he believes now is the time for travel agents to double their efforts to work on selling cruises since the market is showing signs of people wanting to travel again.
Read more: Top things you didn't know travel agents can do for your cruise vacation
Mr. Fain pointed to demand returning in the form of more visitors to Royal Caribbean's website, along with more calls and bookings made directly with the cruise line.
"We need you, our travel partners, to reach our full potential. Of course, there still will be many who prefer to buy buy online, and the internet does make that very easy."
"Simply put, we need you and we need your personal touch. We need you and your knowledge, and the clients need you to help them understand the complexities."
