Cabin fervour

邮轮热

An early victim of the pandemic seeks to refloat

新冠疫情的早期受害者寻求东山再起

The latest addition to the fleet of Carnival, the world’s biggest cruise operator, is the Mardi Gras. This oceangoing playground for 5,300 passengers comes complete with six different zones, including a “French Quarter ”, two dozen restaurants and a rollercoaster. It is set to arrive at its base in Florida in early June. That is a year behind schedule—but possibly just in time for a revival of the industry, which has been hit harder than just about any other by the pandemic.

世界上最大的邮轮运营商嘉年华船队的最新成员是狂欢节号。这个可容纳5300名乘客的海上游乐场配有6个不同的区域，包括一个“法国区”、24家餐厅和一个过山车。它将于6月初抵达佛罗里达州的基地。这比计划晚了一年，但可能正好赶上该行业的复苏，疫情期间该行业受到的打击比其他行业更为严重。

Holidays afloat gave an early hint of Covid-19’ s damage to international travel. Images of passengers stranded aboard modern-day plague ships prefigured lockdowns on land. Most pundits reckon cross border tourism will not fully rebound until 2023. Yet cruising may steam ahead before then. “Where else can you go to bed at night and wake up every morning in a different, new, exciting place?” ventures Arnold Donald, Carnival’s boss.

海面上的假期提前暗示了新冠疫情对国际旅行的损害。乘客滞留在现代化的瘟疫船上的情况预示着陆地上的封锁。大多数专家估计，跨境旅游业要到2023年才会完全复苏，但在此之前，巡航可能会引领行业复苏。嘉年华的老板、投资者阿诺德·唐纳德说：“还有什么地方可以让你晚上睡觉，每天早上又能在另一个不同的、崭新的、令人兴奋的地方醒来呢？”

A break at sea is a small niche of the global tourist industry. Of the 800m or so foreign holidaymakers in 2019, only around 30m ascended a gangway. It was, though, growing fast, adding over 10m more seafaring tourists in a decade. And before the pandemic drowned the business in red ink, it was lucrative. The three companies that transport threequarters of all passengers— Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line—raked in combined operating profits of $6.6bn on revenues of $38bn in 2019.

海上度假是全球旅游业的一个小利基。2019年，大约8亿外国度假者中，只有大约3000万人登上了舷梯。尽管如此，它的发展还是很快，十年内增加了1000多万名航海游客。而在新冠疫情让行业出现赤字以前，该行业还是有利润的。嘉年华、皇家加勒比和挪威邮轮这三家公司运输了四分之三的乘客，在2019年收入380亿美元的基础上，共获得了66亿美元的营业利润。

With fleets mostly idle in the past year, cruise operators have been burning cash. Only a few of the world’ s 270 large cruise ships are at sea with paying passengers. Luckily for Mr. Donald, investors seem to share his belief that the industry will roar back full steam ahead. Carnival has had little trouble raising $24bn of debt and equity over the past 12 months to tide it over; its rivals have also been able to tap the market.

过去一年，由于船队大多闲置，邮轮运营商一直在烧钱。在世界270艘大型邮轮中，只有少数几艘在海上有付费乘客。对唐纳德来说，幸运的是，投资者似乎和他一样相信，该行业将在未来重新扬帆前进。嘉年华在过去12个月通过债务和融资筹集到240亿美元，用来渡过难关几乎没有什么困难；它的竞争对手也能够开拓市场。

Now demand is returning. Carnival’s bookings for 2022 are back at the higher end of historical trends, its boss reports. The industry continues to expand long term capacity. Over 100 vessels are on order; none has been cancelled during the pandemic. Perhaps the biggest head wind is countries’ fast changing rules for international travel, especially in America. Half of all tourist seafarers are North American, double the number of Europeans, the next largest group, with China and other emerging markets far behind for now. Since the pandemic no ship has been allowed to set sail from an American port.

现在需求正在回升。嘉年华的老板表示，嘉年华2022年的预订量回到了历史趋势的高端。该行业继续扩大长期产能。有100多艘船得到订单；在疫情期间，也没有一个订单被取消。也许最大的不利因素是各国迅速变化的国际旅行规则，尤其是在美国。一半的旅游海员来自北美，是欧洲的两倍；欧洲旅游人数第二多，中国和其他新兴市场目前远远落后。自从疫情以来，没有一艘船被允许从美国港口起航。

Mr. Donald hopes that will change soon. Big cruise firms are trying to move things along by lobbying governments to allow vaccinated passengers who test negative for Covid-19 to come onboard. That makes recent efforts by lawmakers in Florida to ban companies from using vaccine passports rather unhelpful. The Sunshine State is home to not just the Mardi Gras but also to America’s largest cruise ports.

唐纳德先生希望情况可以迅速改变。大型邮轮公司正试图通过游说各国政府，让核酸检测呈阴性、接种疫苗的乘客登船。这使得佛罗里达州立法者最近禁止公司使用疫苗护照的努力显得毫无作用。阳光之州不仅是狂欢节的故乡，也是美国最大的邮轮港口的所在地。