Latest fire singes cruise industry
Blaze renews questions about ship safety.
The second major fire on a cruise ship in four months once again has the industry facing questions about safety, even as it braces for another downturn in bookings.
Although no one was badly hurt in Monday’s blaze aboard Royal Caribbean’s Grandeur of the Seas, “the image of the entire industry suffers,” says Christopher Muller, former dean of Boston University’s School of Hospitality Administration.
As of late Tuesday, a Royal Caribbean spokeswoman still wasn’t able to say what had caused the fire, which broke out in a mooring area at Grandeur’s stern.
The ship never lost power and was able to reach Freeport, Bahamas, sev- en hours after the fire started.
“We are working closely with the various agencies that are looking into what happened, (and) until the investigation is complete, I won’t have an update on the cause,” Royal Caribbean spokeswoman Cynthia Martinez told USA TODAY.
Martinez said she couldn’t comment on whether the fire spread past decks 3 and 4, as the company said Monday, even though photos appear to show damage to decks 5 and 6.
Both the U.S. Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board are involved in the investigation.
On Tuesday, Royal Caribbean flew Grandeur’s 2,224 passengers back to Baltimore, after canceling the rest of what was to be a seven-night cruise. The trip began on Friday.
The quick resolution to the crisis for passengers is one reason leisure analyst Matthew Jacob of ITG In- vestment Research expects the fallout on cruise bookings in coming days to be far less severe than what was seen in the wake of the February fire on the Carnival Triumph.
Jacob says pricing data collected by ITG shows Carnival has had to lower summer fares about 20%, on average, since the Triumph fire to make up for lost bookings.
The fire on Grandeur came during a less busy booking time, and “by the time this was reported ( by media), Grandeur already was in a port with all passengers safe,” limiting the negative attention, Jacob notes.
The fires haven’t been the only mishaps in recent months. A March sailing of the 3,646-passenger Carnival Dream came to an early end in St. Maarten after the failure of an emergency generator, punctuating a week that saw two other Carnival ships experience mechanical problems.
“It’s becoming a morale issue” for the industry, Cruise Week editor Mike Driscoll says. “This is the third situation to get worldwide press in less than five months, and that’s just unprecedented.”
While the industry has proved resilient, Muller suspects the string of bad news could cause “a slow bleeding from a thousand cuts.”
“So many people choose to take a cruise because of the perception of simplicity, value and safety,” Muller says. “If you are 500 miles out at sea, you do not want to think it is going to catch on fire. In a land-based hotel, you can simply check out.”
Royal Caribbean says passengers on the aborted cruise will get a refund and voucher for a future cruise.