Adjust font size:
Mr Cheong Teow Cheng, President of Singapore Cruise Centre
Q: In your opinion, what does winning this award mean to Singapore as a cruise destination?
For the first time, Singapore won an award for being the Best Turnaround Destination and in this same year SCCPL was the only Asian Port which garnered the awards for the Most Efficient Terminal Operator and the Best Turnaround Port Operations for Singapore.
To date, Singapore Cruise Centre Pte Ltd (SCCPL) who had been helming the role as the only cruise terminal operator in Singapore had garnered a total of 17 Dreamworld Awards since 1997.
Such awards are an endorsement of the efficiency and the excellent infrastructure and transport networks of our terminal and Singapore as a cruise destination. Being a best turnaround destination requires excellent connectivity between places of interests and the ports and connectivity between the land, sea and air gateways.
This requires that all agencies involved are able to work well together to provide an efficient and seamless transfer between the various points of service.
Q: Singapore has invested a great deal of resources to developing its status as a cruise hub – how successful have some of these efforts been?
When we first started the international cruise terminal at Harbourfront Centre (then known as the World Trade Centre) in 1991, we only had an annual throughput of over 100,000 passengers with about 270 ship calls.
Today, we have about over 800 ship calls a year and almost one million annual passenger throughput. Then, Star Cruises was the only homeporting ship to provided cruise packages to the region.
Ships from the world's top cruise line companies now homeport here in Singapore - Carnival Corporation, Royal Caribbean and Star Cruises.
Royal Caribbean started with the first call in 1999 with Legend of the Seas and thereafter returned to Singapore in end 2007 with Rhapsody of the Seas for the 2007/ 2008 season.
For the 2008/2009 season, they brought back Legend of the Seas and increased their calls to a total of 16 calls and have sent another ship, Azamara Quest, from another of their brands, Azamara Cruises, to call at our port. Come the next season, they are planning to increase the calls by Legend of the Seas to more than 20 and position her permanently in the Asia region from November 2009 onwards.
Costa Cruises (belonging to Carnival Corporation) started with Costa Marina with five calls for the first season between 2006/2007, followed by Costa Allegra with 10 calls in 2007 and a further increase to 14 calls in 2008.
They are planning to increase to about 17 calls this year with additional calls by Costa Classica which made her first call this March. Costa Allegra will be replaced by a much bigger vessel, Costa Romantica, come 2010.
In addition we are also seeing an increase of international cruise liners calling for the first time at our port in recent years. Usually we only have about four or five first calls annually at our port, but, to date, we already have seven first calls at our port. This speaks of the success of our marketing to the international cruise lines.
Getting more of such cruise lines to come is part of developing Singapore as a cruise hub. Like any hub, we need to attract varied brands and types of ships to cater to different demand from tourists to cruise to and from Singapore.
This is also important to opening up the local market to a new holiday option, that is, a cruise holiday versus the traditional option of air travel holidays.
Q: What do you think are some future plans that will solidify this positioning?
Once we have attracted similar major cruise lines to call in this region, our next objective is to be the homeport for their ships and preferably be the turnaround ports for international travellers by developing and attracting more fly-cruise passengers.
Being a turnaround port presents greater economic benefits than just being a way port. We are exploring the idea of providing various incentive programmes, rebates and packaged services to attract more cruise ships to call at Singapore.
Asia as a region is developing as an attractive alternative cruise playground in the world. The potential for growth and development of the cruise industry in Asia is great despite the economic slowdown.
Singapore's success alone is not enough to develop an Asian cruise hub. We need our neighbouring countries to also develop their cruise tourism for greater synergies. In this area, SCCPL has been working with other ports in the region through providing expert advice and partnership in developing their cruise operations.
SCCPL is keen to work with these ports because there is a need for other ports in the region to be equally well developed so as to form itineraries which will make Asia a cruise playground akin to that of the more established Caribbean.
The cruise industry in Asia is just beginning to boom and the ability to secure the Dream World Awards annually acts as a further impetus to enhance the experience of all vessels and passengers that call and visit our terminal in Singapore.
Internationally, the focus of the industry is geared towards greater customer satisfaction and passengers' experience at the destinations. This calls for a re-engineering of our processes that includes working in tandem with the respective key stakeholders in the industry to position Singapore as a preferred destination for cruise passengers in the region.
Being a market leader in this region with regards to cruise development, we are now also exploring the possibility of providing relevant training development for those who may be interested in the development of cruise tourism in the region and leverage on Singapore's success model.
When this is done, Singapore can truly become a hub for cruise tourism - from being a destination to being the source for cruise industry talent.
Q: How has the current economic climate affected the cruising business in Singapore?
Generally the cruise industry is known as being recession resistant; however it does not mean it is recession proof. Though we had not exactly felt the impact from the economic crisis towards the end of 2008 when the crisis hit, we are likely to feel the impact in the coming 2009/ 2010 cruise season.
Typically cruises are booked well in advance and some consumer bookings for 2009/ 2010 cruises would have started before September 2008 when the crisis hit, although growing trends show bookings are now done nearer to the sailing date.
This could explain why there had not been any significant drop in the number of passengers and calls. In fact for the first three months of 2009, we saw an increase of 10 per cent over the same period last year.
As a result of the industry's practice of planning at least two years ahead for their itineraries, we have also not seen any cancellation for berths booked before the crisis. Hence, the extent of the impact is hard to tell at this moment as we are sure the respective cruise lines will have in place various strategies to maximise their planned calls to Singapore.
Q: What measures have the SCC introduced to help cruise industry players through these patchy times?
The Civil Aviation Authority Of Singapore (CAAS), the Singapore Tourism Board ( STB) & the SCC have a tri-partite agreement to provide an incentive programme with a support value up to S$10 million to develop the fly-cruise segment termed the “Fly Cruise Development Fund”. The funding supports cruise lines in their marketing efforts to promote Singapore as an ideal fly-cruise destination.
The SCCPL has also explored other means of showing our support for the cruise lines during these hard times. One way we do this is through constant improvement to our processes and facilities to ensure the passengers have a pleasant experience when they call at our terminal.
A major project we have undertaken despite the economic crisis is to renovate our terminal to create more space for cruise operations. This is done by sacrificing our tenancy revenue in order to enhance the service experience for the cruise passengers.
On top of this, we have committed to training and re-training all our operational staff to improve service standards and quality during this downturn.
