| ACA Update 7 July 21

WITH Jill Abel, CEO, Australian Cruise Association – Road map for travel:
Last week, the Prime Minister
announced a four-phase plan for
the re-opening of international
borders following a National
Cabinet meeting.
The plan, which laid out a series
of steps we need to take as a
country, mostly focused on the
ongoing progress of vaccinations
with some discussion of proposed
home isolation to replace hotel
quarantine and a reduced number
of international arrivals in phase
one to help get the spread of the
COVID variants under control.
While it was encouraging to
finally get this framework, we are
still lacking any clear sense of a
timeline for this model.
However, the biggest omission
was any inclusion of a direction for
the restart of cruise.
Prior to the opening of
international borders, we as an
industry have been proposing
domestic cruising as an option,
requesting that foreign-flagged
ships with vaccinated crews be
allowed back into Australia with
a range of pre-cruise testing and
onboard protocols for pax.
The industry has also done
extensive work on how a longterm road map to cruise would
look including plans for safety
around onshore visits, but these
proposals failed to make it into any
discussions in Cabinet.
CLIA stated on Fri “Australia is
now the only major cruise market
in the world where no progress has
been made towards a responsible
cruise resumption.”
A major contributor to the
economy, cruise has again been
set adrift by the Government.