Coral eyes restart in WA, SA, Tas

CORAL Expeditions Commercial Director Jeff Gillies has revealed details of the cruise line’s full restart plan, flagged last week upon the announcement of its return to operations (CW 18 Sep).

With Coral announcing it would return to cruising in Queensland next month, Gillies told Cruise Weekly the line had also developed itineraries across the next six months in Tasmania, WA and SA.

Beginning in the summer, the cruise line plans to redeploy Coral Adventurer and Coral Geographer - which was floated out on the weekend - from their cancelled Maluku Islands, Indonesia & Sulawesi series to Western Australia and South Australia.

“The plan is for some Broome to Fremantle trips across 12 nights, and if the environment is right and we can get approval, we know South Australia is very keen,” Gillies divulged.

He also teased a Fremantle to Adelaide departure had been workshopped, provided approval could be secured from the Government of WA.

It would include “Geographe Bay, some of the wineries, Esperance, the Bight and the national park islands around South Australia,” Gillies said.

If approval was received, Coral would then commence its usual summer deployments to Tasmania and the Kimberley from Jan through to Mar 2021.

“Some of those are still under development and need to come with the blessing of various state and territory governments,” Gillies added, admitting Coral foresaw 2021 as a year focused mostly on Australia, but hoped NZ and the Pacific would enter the frame later in the year.

However, boding well for the future, Coral is seeing a strong response to its on-sale itineraries.

“Through Oct we’re reaching a 60-70% occupancy rate with no marketing and a short runway and in the environment where there’s a lot of caution out there, which is encouraging.

“They’re predominantly Qlders, but we’re starting to see some more interest out of SA, the NT, we’re starting to see some trade inquiries from the ACT.”

Gillies also mentioned how grateful Coral was to its guests, with 98% of affected passengers rebooking their travel, and noted the cruise line would continue to support the trade.

“We’ve kept a team in reservation and sales direct to customer and direct to industry, we’re answering the phones, we’re on the end of an e-mail and we’re keeping the energy up.”