THE CRISIS in Kosovo has led to a fall in occupancy on European cruises operated by P&O’s UScompany Princess Cruises.
However, bookings are now slightly ahead of this time last year, and the Caribbean and Alaska cruises are performing strongly.
Princess achieved 2.8m passenger berth days, or number of days passengers are booked on-board, in the first half of 1999. The figure for the first half of 1998 was 2.1m.
Meanwhile, P&O’s UK arm P&O Cruises’ passenger berth days fell from 747,000 in the first half of 1998 to 682,000 in the same period this year. The company blamed this on extended refit work on its vessel Oriana, which led to the cancellation of an 11-day cruise and three-day charter. However, it said the revenue loss was covered by insurance.