MOVING FORWARD >> IN THE NEW NORMAL

We all have to take the right measures, and regain the trust of the travelling public. It is a precondition for the continuing of our industry. We are about to see some very fundamental changes to the whole cruising industry in the midst of a ­massive crisis - from fore to aft, top to bottom.

Our job, as designers together with owners and specialists, is of course to offer the best possible safety onboard, without sacrificing the very reason for leisure travelling. To begin with, it will affect all the offerings onboard, a lot of the hardware, the training and number of crew, onboard equipment, etc.

We also don’t want to overreact or create solutions that add concern to an already concerned guest. It still has to be fun and safe to travel, also in the future, not a calculated risk.

In the words of a well-known cruise executive: ”to suggest that overnight, you’re going to take out 40%, 50% or 60% of the inventory and not sell it, might be a very short-term solution to get the wheels moving. But that is not sustainable. Whoever tries to do that will go out of business”.

Nevertheless, there are reasons to believe that there will have to be less guests onboard - and perhaps some more crew. Prices will initially, most ­likely, be dropped to get people back on the ships. All this will of course affect the profitability of the whole industry, which will press for ships that are most cost-effective in the design. To find the right long term solutions, it will therefore be critical to understand the entire value chain.

WITH COMBINED EFFORTS AND INNOVATION

In order to continue offering a competitive guest experience, there will be big changes all the way back to the supply chain, and indeed how we build and operate the ships in the first place. We will need to compress all back of house facilities, and not have more crew than what is absolutely necessary. All flows onboard, back-of-house and front-of-house, will have to be optimized further to avoid congestion, and to maximize efficiency. The buffet lines may go, but what do we replace them with? If less queuing is required, we may need to redesign the whole embarkation process.

All this has potential to help turn things around, and create an even better guest experience!

JOIN US AT OUR WEBINARS

In the light of this, we have initiated a series of webinars, in which we want to contribute in the best way we can. We are doing so by picking the brains of some of the most knowledgeable people we have in our network.

In these webinars, we will touch on everything from the guest experience and all the way back to how things are produced:

1. History & Tech / Medical / Public Trust

2. Staying Sane - Anti-microbial Surface Treatments / Textile & Furtniture ­T­reatment / Graphics

3. Re-boot and Re-Design - Updating the Guest Experience

4. Inside Insights - A Ships life - Seen from many Perspectives.

The first two session have been amazingly very well-attended, and jam-packed with priceless insights from some leading players in each area of expertise. For the coming three, we will be seeing some well-known faces from leading design companies, ship owners and ship management.

It is our genuine hope and ambition that by quickly joining forces, and collectively tackle the challenges the industry is facing, we will help to turn the development around and come out even stronger when the storm is eventually slackening. 

Text by:

 Fredrik Johansson, Partner & ­Executive ­Director, Tillberg Design of Sweden

Helena Sawelin Partner & Business Director, Tillberg Design of Sweden