RIMINI - The real breath of optimism comes to the TTG Travel Experience from the world of cruises, so affected at the beginning of the pandemic by the sensational case of the Diamond Princess and today, after an enormous organizational and economic effort, the leader in the restart.
Buffers upon arrival and departure of both passengers and crew, distancing measures, protected excursions and management of any suspected cases (as happened for example this morning on the Msc Grandiosa in Malta where an unconfirmed suspected case was immediately isolated allowing the ship to continue its voyage) according to a protocol that seems to be working so far.
And that also makes other operators talk about a true "cruise model" - which the leaders of MSC and Costa Cruises "tell" to ANSA - to be followed also in the other tourist sectors to try to get out of the Covid-19 "quagmire" that it is literally slaughtering the industry.
"I am going to our ships every week and they are giving me more tampons than the players ...".
Thus begins the story of Leonardo Massa with a big smile under the mask.
"More than a cruise model - says Massa - I take the liberty of saying there is an MSC model. We have 17 ships, we were the first company in the world to leave on August 16 with the MSC Grandiosa and tomorrow the Magnifica will also start, so we will have two operational. We have adopted a very rigid 190-page protocol submitted first to the attention of the CTS, then to all national and European authorities and after 11 weeks of use, allow me to say that it works. A protocol that provides for the buffer to all passengers and obviously the crew before leaving, thousands of swabs with response in 40-50 minutes that make the ship a sterile environment. It is a truly unique situation in the world, a community of three thousand people living together and they are all checked for Covid. Then we have very important levels of sanitation, new advanced technologies for air recycling, over 500 gel columns throughout the ship ".
Safety also with regard to safe excursions: people can get off the ship but only with the organization of the company, the buses are completely sanitized, the driver and guide are in turn subjected to a buffer, the itineraries are in line with this level of safety.
"A protocol is also foreseen in the case of management of any cases on board, with sterile areas of the ship, with separate corridors and already in connection with the ASL of the ports we touch".
"We realized that the needs and requirements of our customers had changed. To the need for escape was added the need for a proximity holiday in a relaxed atmosphere with few problems and a high standard of safety" explains Beniamino Maltese, Executive Vice President and CFO of the Costa Cruises Group.
"We worked with all the Italian authorities and the control chain and we approved a protocol that is the first in the Western world, we started on September 6, we took our time, we know that we are not going through a peak season but 'However, there is a demand for cruises with a high standard of safety.
We have 3 ships in operation (another one will start tomorrow) out of the 27 of our group's fleet and we have had very very positive comments because with social distancing we offer a product with a higher content not only from the point of view of health but because we have substantially doubled the service per passenger ".
And he clarifies: "The strategic objective is to reactivate the cruise ecosystem, to help our eight thousand travel agents, who have suffered a lot, to find in their portfolio a product that they can genuinely and sincerely suggest to their customers with the guarantee of not finding them upset. on the way back".
Maltese is confident about the future: "We are sure that the market will have a big rebound at the beginning of the year, when people go to book their holidays for 2021".
And he adds: "Tomorrow the ship of our subsidiaries Aida leaves with over a thousand passengers on board coming from Germany. It
will sail only in Italian ports, so we begin to reactivate our beautiful cities of art and the environment. We believe that this opens the road to a second combined model between plane and cruise. When this too will be reactivated and airport traffic will be restarted, I think we can say that we have "overcome" the greatest difficulties that this pandemic has brought us ".
(HANDLE).