South Africa’s cruise sector on two-year lag to rest of the world post-COVID says Volk

The cruise sector in South Africa has recovered slower than the rest of the world, with highly-contested national elections in 2024 having caused additional delays to recovery, according to Ross Volk, Managing Director, MSC Cruises South Africa.

Speaking to IOL, Volk said South Africa was finally on track for a full recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of the local source market, two years later than the rest of the world.

This delay in recovery was also partially attributable to the national elections in 2024, which compounded wider economic uncertainty in the country, which has faced economic stagnation for the last decade.

“[The cruise industry] has rebounded exceptionally well globally, but also within South Africa,” said Volk.

“The past two years have certainly seen a bigger recovery. In my view, South Africa was on an 18 month to two-year time lag to the rest of the world. So we bounced back a little slower in terms of the trends,” he said. 

“There was an element of doubt towards the start of the elections… But now that there’s a lot more positivity around travel, I think we can look forward to some some positive times going forward,” Volk added.

The comments may explain MSC Cruises’ decision to homeport a smaller ship in South Africa for the upcoming 2024/25 cruise season. 

During the most recent season, MSC Cruises redeployed MSC Splendida to the country. The 140,000-gross ton vessel, with a passenger capacity of almost 4,000, was the largest cruise ship ever to homeport in South Africa.

This year, however, MSC Cruises will be replacing MSC Splendida with MSC Musica, which is just 90,000 gross tons and carries around 2,500 passengers. 

MSC Musica has previously homeported in South Africa, and replaced the smaller MSC Lirica and Opera, which homeported in Durban and Cape Town in previous years.

The decision to upgrade from MSC Musica to Splendida was seen as a major test of the South African home market’s ability to sustain demand for such a large vessel, but appears not to have reaped the return hoped for by MSC Cruises.

Around 120,000 South Africans cruised aboard the ship during the most recent cruise season, roughly similar to the pre-COVID numbers seen by MSC Musica in 2019, suggesting occupany of 60 to 70% for MSC Splendida.