Carl Schou of Wilhelmsen Ship Management says cruiseship sector consolidation and companies exiting the market is being balanced out for shipmanagers by the “healthy pipeline of new expedition cruise clients” and others entering the industry.
But he cautions that cruiseship opportunities in China are tempered by the fact that some high-profile Western operators have already started pulling ships from that market because they simply cannot fill them.
Wilhelmsen Ship Management — in addition to V.Ships Leisure, Columbia Shipmanagementand Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement — bid recently for contracts to handle technical and hotel management of the 69,800-gt Oriana (built 1995) when it is delivered to its new Chinese owners. V.Ships Leisure was successful.
“But it isn’t just about technical management, also hotel management,” says Wilhelmsen Ship Management president Schou. “For sure there will be a number of [Chinese] opportunities for those who can offer a combination.”
Cruise Management International’s Jim Barreiro de Leon says his company is interested in bidding for hotel management opportunities in China but its current focus is on managing SunStone Ships’ expedition newbuildings being built at China Merchants Industry Holdings.
Orders for vessels four and five in that series were firmed up earlier this month.
“On the technical management side, I don’t think we want to go there [China] at this particular moment,” he says. “We are really driven by ensuring that we manage what we are doing today well. If there are opportunities we will decide on a case-by-case basis.”
But what he describes as centres of excellence within Cruise Management International mean that it is open to negotiate individual services such as port logistics, fuel management and itinerary planning as opposed to full technical management packages.
