CLIA crowns Dan Russell as Cruise Champion, declares Aussie cruise renaissance
CLIA Australasia has wrapped up its first in-person Cruise360 in nearly three years, naming Dan Russell as Cruise Champion and declaring an Aussie cruise renaissance.
The coveted cruise conference kicked off yesterday morning welcoming a sold-out crowd of more than 550 attendees to Sydney’s Hyatt Regency to discuss the state of the cruise industry in 2022 and what’s ahead in the ‘post-pandemic’ landscape.
Attendees were brought up to date with thought-provoking insights and updates from a line-up of high-profile industry players like Carnival Australia CEO Marguerite Fitzgerald, Royal Caribbean VP & MD Gavin Smith, Uniworld CEO Ellen Bettridge, Celebrity Cruises MD Tim Jones and CEO of Australian Cruise Association Jill Abel, just to name a few.
Clean Cruising general manager, Dan Russell was honoured with the Cruise Champion Award for his role in supporting industry calls for a careful resumption of cruise operations in Australia and New Zealand.
“Dan Russell worked shoulder to shoulder with CLIA, cruise lines, and fellow advocates, to help secure a pathway to resumption for the Australasian cruise industry,” said CLIA’s managing director for Australasia, Joel Katz.
“Dan’s efforts supported and inspired so many others to help secure a way forward for cruising in our region.”
The Cruise Champion Award was announced by the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) in 2019 to acknowledge the evolving role of travel agents and the increasing part they play as ambassadors for the cruise industry.
While CLIA’s annual Cruise Industry Awards have been suspended for the past two years, the Cruise Champion category has been offered as a special award for 21-2022 to recognise the efforts of many thousands of travel agents who campaigned for cruising’s return.
“When we created the Cruise Champion Award before the pandemic, we could never have known how important this category would become,” Katz said.
“Over the past two years, every travel agent in the region has become a Cruise Champion. We’re incredibly grateful to every single member of the travel agent community.”
CLIA’s annual Cruise Industry Awards will return for the first time in three years in March 2023 with a gala event to be held at the Big Top at Luna Park, Sydney.
CLIA also took the opportunity at Cruise360 to launch its Cruise Month campaign, promoting cruising opportunities throughout the month of September as Australia prepares for a bumper summer cruise season with 46 ships set to hit Aussie ports.
Visiting international ships are set to make their first seasonal deployments and world-cruise stopovers in more than two years, joining the home-ported vessels already forging Australia’s cruising recovery.
Katz said the 2022-23 season would be an excellent first summer for the Australian cruise industry as it continues to renew.
“As we move into spring and summer, we’ll soon see more of the international cruise ships that we’ve been missing over the past two seasons,” Katz said.
“Each visit will bring new visitors and new opportunities for local communities, helping to rebuild an industry previously worth more than $5 billion a year to the Australian economy.”
More than 20 CLIA cruise lines will operate ships in Australian waters between now and the end of April, 2023, including P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises, PONANT, Silversea, Coral Expeditions, APT, Carnival Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises, Cunard, Holland America Line, Norwegian Cruise Line, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Windstar Cruises, Oceania Cruises, Azamara Cruises, Seabourn and MSC Cruises.
Image: Facebook/CLIAAustralasia
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