Royal Caribbean Vice President of Commercial and New Business Development John Tercek says the world wants to come to Australia when he spoke at the Cruise Down Under conference in Cairns last week.
Tercek said Australia has a great international reputation and image and is going to see a lot more cruise traffic.
Royal Caribbean already has five ships operating in Australia between sister company Celebrity Cruises and itself.
Tercek says the big challenege for the Australian cruise market is the expensive air fare to Australia along with the long distances the ships must travel. Because of these distances, Australian cruises are unique in that most cruises are longer than seven nights.
Other challenges Tercek idenitifed are the odd comibination of days due to the fact the Sydney only has one cruise terminal to handle the larger cruise ships due to the Harbour Bridge being too low for Royal Caribbean's ships.
"We are growing here, we"ve been growing here, we hope to go on growing here, but the issues are there," he said.
However, Tercek described on-going discussions about improved infrastructure are "promising."
He said Royal Caribbean has two Voyager-class ships sailing in China and hopes to add more ships as that market grows.
"As it does grow, it is not that far to come down here," Tercek told Cruise Down Under delegates.
