Dream Cruises, the core cruise brand of Hong Kong-listed Genting Hong Kong, is suspending its cruise operations out of Singapore amidst the growing chaos that the COVID-19 coronavirus is wreaking on the Asian cruise sector.
The company Singapore-based 150,000-gt cruiseship Genting Dream (built 2016) will stop sailing on 23 February.
The company hopes to resume its cruises from Singapore on 27 March.
While stressing that there have been no reported cases of COVID-19 among its passengers or crew while on board, or transmitted via any of its ships, Dream Cruises president Michael Goh said the suspension was a precautionary measure.
“Dream Cruises has made the difficult decision to suspend its operations from Singapore as a measure to help curtail the spread of COVID-19 and as a result of the tightening travel restrictions that have been enacted by various countries,” Goh explained.
Genting Cruise Lines, the umbrella company under which all of Genting Hong Kong’s cruise operations are grouped, has been one of the cruise companies hardest hit by the fallout of the coronavirus outbreak in Asia.
Five of the seven cruiseships operated by the Dream Cruises and Star Cruises brands have been idled, leaving only the 75,300-gt cruiseship Explorer Dream (built 1999) operating from Australia to the South Pacific and the tiny 3,400-gt cruiseship The Taipan (built 1991) running overnight cruises to nowhere from the Malaysian port of Penang.
The company has tentatively scheduled an April resumption for most of its Asian cruise itineraries.
Genting HK has not provided any guidance to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on how the coronavirus will impact its earnings.
Dream Cruises withdrawal from Singapore comes despite the city-state’s Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) announcing a raft of measures this week designed to provide relief to cruise and ferry operators who have seen a drop in passenger volumes due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The new concessions, to be given from 1 March 2020 to 31 August 2020, include a 50% port dues concession on all passenger vessels.
The only cruise line that looks set to take advantage of this in the near future is Carnival Corp’s Costa Crociere, which continues to operate the 102,700-gt cruiseship Costa Fortuna (built 2003) on week-long cruises out of Singapore, making it just about the only large cruiseship still operating in Asia.
