Ports & destinations


An ocean of opportunities


With low levels of Covid-19 and around two million citizens set to receive a vaccine in the next few months, things in New Zealand are almost back to normal again. For its cruise industry, that means a renewed focus on local travel. Andrea Valentino talks to Sarina Bratton, chair of Asia-Pacifi c for Ponant, and Debbie Summers, chair of the New Zealand Cruise Association, about why the island nation proved so irresistible to travellers before the pandemic, the potential for Trans-Tasman cruising to boom again – and how safety measures must be accompanied by long-term infrastructure investments.


nui-a-Kiwa, or the Great Standing Place of Kiwa. After coming ashore, the European newcomers, accompanied by a talented draughtsman from Tahiti, quickly found themselves in trouble. A fight broke out, some of the Maori were killed and the arrivals fled back to their boat. Yet from this inauspicious start, Captain James Cook and his men would learn more of this new land and the people who lived there, and forever transform the history of Turanga-nui-a-Kiwa.


O World Cruise Industry Review / www.worldcruiseindustryreview.com


n 8 October 1769, a rickety wooden ship dropped anchor off the moorlands of New Zealand, at a cove the Maori call Turanga-


New Zealand has had an intimate relationship with the sea ever since – how could it not when the nearest landmass is 1,000 miles of ocean away? From Cook and his draughtsman, through to the indentured servants who came in the nineteenth century and the country’s successes in the America’s Cup, this is a land, as Mark Twain once put it, that “lies by itself, out in the water.” It feels natural, then, that in recent times New Zealand has seen a swell in cruise tourism. In 2018 alone, the industry leapt by 28%, contributing NZ$569.8m (£298m) to the national economy.


47


Dajahof/Shutterstock.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65