While the Caribbean will continue as America's most popular cruise destination, the wave of the future will be in Southeast Asia, where Americans visiting those distant ports will divide their time between surf and turf.
A record number of companies report that at least one of their ships will cruise the region in 1995 and thereafter. Last year, less than 1 percent of the estimated 4.4 million cruise passengers sailed in Southeast Asian waters.So sure of the trend is Club Med - one of the world's largest land-based resort operators - that it plans to open a village in Vietnam and increase its cruise fleet to accommodate the increasing numbers of tourists it expects will want to travel the Orient.
Club Med first tested the waters of the region this past spring and summer during a series of cruises on one of its two ships between Bali, Singapore and Vietnam.
"The region has great attraction and the response to our cruises was so great that we decided to build a vacation village in Vietnam on the coast northeast of Saigon at Hon Gon Bay in Nha Trang," said Serge Trigano, chairman and CEO of Club Med Inc., which operates 113 all-inclusive resorts around the globe along with two 392-passenger cruise/sailing ships.
"We begin construction next year and hopefully we'll be able to open the village by the end of 1996," said Trigano, noting that its debut would coincide with the entry into cruise service of Club Med 3 "if plans go as they are now envisioned."
Club Med is no stranger to Southeast Asia. It already has villages in Cheratang, Malaysia; Phuket, Thailand; and Bali, Indonesia.
"We found in our Southeast Asia cruises that Americans traveling such great distances enjoyed mixing their voyages with stays on land. It makes a lot of sense and we see a strong trend developing toward this type of vacation," said the Club Med executive.
The new multi-million dollar Vietnam village will be one of the first major resorts by a Western corporation in the country, said Trigano, noting that Club Med, which hosted some 1.2 million vacationers last year, makes a point of "pioneering places."
"If you're first to develop an area, you get the pick of the best locations. For instance, the Hon Gon Bay beaches are among the best and most beautiful in all of Asia," he said.
Trigano said that Club Med has developed more properties in undeveloped regions around the world than any other resort operator. It's a "win-win" situation, he says, because vacationers get new destinations and the local economies flourish.
"We launched the tourism industry in Cheratang, Malaysia. Now there are three hotels, two more are being built, and there's a new and thriving flower nursery industry to supply the hotels with orchids," he said.
Ironically, although Southeast Asia offers "fantastic opportunities," Trigano said that there probably won't be a Club Med ship plying those waters until the end of next year at the earliest.
That's because Club Med 1 is already committed to the Caribbean this fall and winter and and Club Med 2 to New Caledonia and French Polynesia.
When the company, whose world headquarters are in Paris, commissioned a Le Harve shipyard to build its ships, it struck a deal with the government whereby it would receive subsidies for giving the job to a French firm, a common practice in European countries, Trigano noted. One of the caveats was that for at least six months every year for five years the Club Med ships had to sail from a French port or one of its overseas territories.
Hence, Club Med 1 - which cost $100 million and went into service in 1990 - spends the fall and winter sailing the Caribbean from its home port of Fort-de-France, Martinique, and then switches to Cannes for Mediterranean cruising.
Club Med 2, which cost $125 million and began cruising at the end of 1992, is spending the fall and winter sailing from New Caledonia, a French territory in the Pacific, where there are two Club Med villages.
According to Trigano, one of ship's itineraries takes it from Noumea, New Caledonia, to ports in the Republic of Vanuatu island chain, many of which have never been touched by a cruise ship and where Club Med has just completed landing rights negotiations. In the spring, the ship repositions to French Polynesia, where there are also two Club Med villages.
Trigano said that the five-year time limit on Club Med 1 ends late next year, and when Club Med 3 comes on line, there will be no restrictions on where her older sisters may sail.
An increasing number of cruise lines have begun to tap into it the Southeast Asia market after noting the interest among passengers for new and exotic destinations.
In addition to Club Med, more than a dozen companies have reported that one of their ships will be sailing Southeast Asian waters beginning next year. They include Classical Cruises, Crystal Cruises, Cunard Line, Holland America Line, Orient Lines, Pearl Cruises, Princess Cruises, Regency Cruises, Renaissance Cruises, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, Royal Cruise Line, Seabourn Cruise Line, Seven Seas Cruise Line and Special Expeditions.