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8 | www.travelweekly-asia.com Will Singapore or Shanghai emerge aS cruiSe hub of aSia? by arnie Weissmann, editor-in-chief, Travel Weekly uS for those who were still fuzzy- headed on the subject of asia's importance to the cruise industry, the wakeup call came in april when royal caribbean international (rci) announced that its Quantum of the Seas, would move to Shanghai after spending only six months based in bayonne, new Jersey, its originally announced homeport. While the news cheered travel retailers in asia, it was not welcome news in all quarters. given the high percentage of repeat cruisers on any sailing from a uS port, american travel agents had come to rely on new ships to spur interest from clients who have all but memorised the well-worn shipping lanes in the eastern and Western caribbean. rci executives took pains to underscore the continuing importance of the uS market, but it's clear that the potential for growth in the cruise industry is greatest in asia, albeit starting from a much smaller base. When i asked larry pimentel, ceo of azamara club cruises, about the potential in china in particular, he simply looked at me and said, "it'll explode." azamara is a sister company to rci, and although he didn't mention the Quantum by name, he began elaborating by saying, "big, sexy, cool ships for the mass market – it's going to be big. Keep your eye on developments there." but where there? pimentel currently uses Singapore as a base for organising asia shore-excursions for all of royal caribbean cruises ltd. in his role as corporate head of global tour operations, but when we spoke, his focus was clearly on china. rival carnival corporation, on the other hand, has indicated Singapore will play a big role in its future. before pier luigi foschi retired last year as ceo of carnival asia, he had pointed out Singapore's attributes as a homeport. he noted that asia presented infrastructure challenges for cruise lines ("What we really need is integration with the airport, railroads and roads. easy access to the cruise terminals. We need government effort to clear the luggage [at the airport] and dispatch it to cabins"), and that, for the time being, lack of scale hindered the line from offering air/sea/hotel packages. but Singapore, he said, was central to carnival's "dream" for development in asia. "Singapore is fortunately situated," he said. "The weather is good for ships year-round, the sea is relatively calm. from Shanghai, we can position ships and head south. from Singapore, you can go to Thailand, malaysia and indonesia." "he had commercial reasons to point to Singapore," pimentel countered. "You don't have a 90-person office there and not point to Singapore. but i don't see Singapore as the hub. it's currently available as a hub because of its cruise passenger terminals." and pressed just a bit, he willingly conceded Singapore has many attractive attributes: "it's efficient, stable, a hub of banking, excellent infrastructure. it's a class act, and has the ability to attract the australian market. it has great access from the uS, it's a strong recipient (of travellers). "but i say keep your eye on how this develops," he continued. "What we have today is not what will be tomorrow. look at how the caribbean developed. The lines bought islands and created experiences. in my view, you'll see similar things happen (in asia) over time. On the Pacific Rim, you have a lot of originating traffic, and now we're seeing the convergence of upscale and mass markets." both foschi and pimentel also indirectly indicated that they have moved to Step Two of the industry's 12-Step programme for expanding into asia. after the initial burst of gold-rush enthusiasm about china's staggering potential that followed predictions that a billion more chinese will move up to the middle class by 2027, i am increasingly hearing that there is perhaps a "long runway" before that potential takes off. (how long? christopher columbus is said to have written "meracciones innumeras" ("incalculable trade") in the margin of his copy of "The Travels of marco polo" alongside the description of the harbours of cathay. more than 500 years later, most of the world still stands waiting, calculators in hand.) "They still have a long way to go," foschi had said about asian destinations and their suitability as ports of call. Similarly, pimentel said that cruising in asia is "embryonic," but he also believes that the potential for growth in asia is so great that today's cruise industry is baby-size compared to where it will be once asia is up and running. "The market is just so big, so powerful. i'm toward the end of my career, but cruising is just at the beginning." What interests me most about pimentel's commentary was the thought that asia might develop along similar lines to the caribbean. The development of private islands seemed to me to grow out of a need for both "new" stops on otherwise repetitive itineraries and a desire for absolute control over a land environment, similar to the control lines have onboard. repetition isn't an issue yet in asia, but private islands would certainly address foschi's concerns about whether enough asian destinations are ready to receive cruise passengers. Such private islands might also represent a hedge against the vagaries of asian government policies. in the caribbean, cruise lines have wielded their economic leverage to gain the cooperation of island governments, but find themselves in a less favourable position in asia. for example recently, due to territorial disputes between china and Japan, china informed the cruise lines that ships leaving chinese ports could not include Japan on itineraries. ultimately, asian governance may be the single greatest factor that determines the development of cruising in asia. i doubt that eastern Pacific Rim cruising will ever be thought of as caribbean east. PRODUCT: CRUises Quantum of the Seas: moving to Shanghai but does that mean china will own the market?