| CLIA Update 06 Oct 21

WITH Joel Katz, MD, CLIA Australasia – Australia falls further behind:
Australia has become even
more isolated among cruise
nations over the past week.
China has welcomed its first
local sailing since the start of the
pandemic, and Brazil and South
Africa have both announced
they’ll resume cruise operations
within weeks.
These milestones show yet
again how far behind the rest
of the world Australia has fallen
and how little progress our
governments have made towards
confirming a plan for cruising’s
careful revival.
Given Fri’s announcement
Australians will be able to travel
overseas sooner than expected,
we now face the ridiculous
possibility that we’ll be able to
travel to other countries to cruise
but won’t be able to sail in our
own waters.
This is not only an absurd
scenario, it also means valuable
cruise tourism will head overseas
while the jobs of more than 18k
Australians remain in jeopardy.
Almost 2 million people have
now sailed in dozens of countries
around the world where cruising
has resumed, yet in Australia
governments are still failing to
engage in meaningful discussions
about how we can achieve similar
success locally.
CLIA and our cruise line
members are continuing to lobby
hard for a phased resumption.