The man who built the Princess brand into Australia’s favourite has a simple message for the line’s fans bemoaning the reduction in the fleet size this season: Australia and New Zealand need to remove regulatory uncertainty, accept increased prices and lower port fees.
Oh, and the Aussie dollar needs to rise as well.
Sudden rule changes and port charge hikes as well as low prices are among the primary reasons lines say is driving the decision to sail ships in other regions, and it is compounded by ports hiking their prices.
Allison was talking as it was revealed that Auckland, which has increased fees hugely and imposed bio regulations, has asked for the return a homeported ship.
Pacific Explorer was pulled out after one season.
New Zealand has a particularly bad record at imposing new regulations that deter cruising. Who can forget the number of ships turned away by biosecurity rules?
Allison declined to discuss the New Zealand position. It’a vital part of Australia’s cruising arena and diplomacy is the order of the day.
He has been toiling away at building cruise brands within Carnival Australia for two decades and is shortly leaving for the UK to head up P&O Cruises’ seven-ship fleet as Chief Commercial Officer.
He is a well-respected industry leader and a big loss to Australian cruising.
And he remains surprisingly optimistic about the future of cruising Down Under, even though he once presided over a wave season fleet of five ships, with regional ports like Adelaide and cities like Melbourne hosting their vessels.
This 2024/25 wave season, beginning shortly, Australia will host the 113,561-tonne Crown Princess, admittedly the largest ship that Princess Cruises has ever sent to Australia to sail full-time.
Throughout her debut season, she’ll make 78 visits across 21 ports in the country, another record for a Princess ship in Australia. She will also become the biggest ship to ever host a world cruise when it leaves Australia on a 113-night world cruise in May 2025.
The Diamond Princess will sail from Sydney.
But Melbourne, a port that jacked up prices in the middle of last year’s season and drove off Virgin Voyages, won’t be seeing a Princess ship homeport. Adelaide will also not have a ship of its own.
Princess fans are gutted. Allison will only say he’s “disappointed”.
He explains it’s hard to press the case to Princess’ US owners for more APAC vessels when countries like New Zealand jack up charges and introduce environmental regulations that make the business of sending ships to the region uncertain and expensive.
Not when American cruise is booming, with prices setting records, Australian and New Zealand governments are gouging port fees and setting up regulatory hoops to jump through.
Americans don’t like business uncertainty, and Australia and New Zealand have been delivering that in spades.
Princess was once despatching four ships a fortnight to Auckland.
Now, no Carnival ship is homeported there and the government is keen to see if relationships can be repaired.
Carnival Australia, once Australia’s largest cruise operator, is having a refit of its own. P&O Australia, an iconic 92-year-old brand, will disappear next February. Its ships will be absorbed into the Carnival brand, with Pacific Explorer, the vessel that returned cruising to Australia after Covid, sold off.
Princess will now work hard at persuading Australians to fly cruise. The fleet’s reduction will leave some die-hard Princess fans waiting at the dockside, and Allison is hoping they can be tempted to Europe by the allure of the new Sun Princess, to Japan aboard the Diamond Princess, or Alaska for the brand new Star Princess.
Ezair will be wheeled out to help book flights.
Crown Princess will be the largest ship to sail a world cruise from Australia – an incredibly popular sailing introduced during Allison’s tenure. The round-Australia cruise is another innovation he has overseen.
Next year will see Princess celebrate its 50th year of cruising in Australia. It wasn’t continuous, he confides because Australians didn’t get why they were charged a premium for en suite bathrooms aboard the Pacific Princess and refused to pay it. The line retreated for several years before returning with en suites everywhere.
Allison numbers the arrival of the Majestic Princess, the Pacific Princess coming to Australia, and the world cruise leaving from Down Under as his proudest moments.
And he points out that Aussies spend more nights on a Princess ship than any other brand, despite other lines having bigger ships.
The line has managed to achieve a major market share, and once took out five Cruise Passenger Readers’ Choice Awards, regularly winning more than any other brand.
What happens next and who succeeds Allison as the brand’s ambassador remains to be seen.
See more here
