How the cruise industry should return in Malaysia and globally amid Covid-19

Cruise lines have effective procedures for handling onboard health crises, but only the public health authorities in the countries where they berth have control over how ships disembark sick passengers. — AFP

The cruise industry has virtually ceased to exist during the Covid-19 pandemic. Cruise lines have cancelled departures for most or all of the summer season, while many of the ships are anchored in or off various ports around the world (many of them are anchored near Manila in the Philippines, where onboard staff have been repatriated).

At least one cruise line has already announced that onboard buffets will be eliminated or drastically changed once operations resume, and that spurred many other ideas about how the industry might take advantage of the downtime to retool – not just from a health and safety perspective but to address many of the concerns that have long been shared by those both within and outside of the cruising sphere.