Webjet: “poor job” at cruise

WEBJET Chief Executive Officer John Gucsic says the decision to close down the company’s Cruise Sale Finder division early in the pandemic (CW 01 Apr) was relatively easy because “we’d done a poor job in our cruise division for a significant period”.

The move was announced in the lead-up to Webjet’s successful capital raising in Apr, as the company made wide-ranging adjustments to its operations and scrambled to deal with the impacts of plummeting demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an interview at The Travel Industry Hub this week, Gucsic told Cruise Weekly the Webjet cruise operations were still a “raw, sore point with me”.

“It was borderline profitable and declining in relevance to our Online Republic business,” he said, adding that “it was a relatively small part of the operation through our own lack of performance”.

However he also noted that in his view the negative publicity around what had happened in cruising in the very early stages of the pandemic would mean it would take a significant time for the sector to rebound.

“The thing about being confined in a cruise ship where there could be an outbreak meant in my view a longer recovery period - that made it a relatively easy decision to close the cruise business,” the Webjet chief said.

Webjet’s now shuttered cruise operations ceased taking bookings on 01 Apr but existing reservations continued to be supported through until the beginning of this month.

However following a transition, Webjet bookings are now being supported by cruise lines directly.