Onorato (MSC): “China Can Wait” / INTERVIEW

Saint-Nazaire - “We are already a leader in the Mediterranean in terms of branding and the number of beds that we offer. But with Meraviglia we will further strengthen our position in this market.” Gianni Onorato is the man with the numbers: he rattled them off when he described the Aponte Group’s new cruise ship at the steel cutting ceremony, and he did it to explain the shift in the company’s deployment of its services in the Mediterranean. “We offer 816,000 beds,” the C.E.O. of MSC Cruises pronounced, pointing out that the figure is higher than their largest competitor, Costa Cruises. And yet this area has suffered a tremendous blow because of the attack in Tunis: “Our response to what our clients were asking for was adequate. For example, the French feel a stronger link to those regions, partly because of the language, while the Italians less so. We suspended calls [there] after the tragedy, but in December we wanted to resume them and so during the winter season we continued our calls at Tunisian ports. It was a momentary reaction and Tunisia is now doing what a normal country should do, and reacting seriously to a tragedy of this kind. The Mediterranean loses a great deal if North Africa is excluded: for foreigners, especially for North America, because it has a significant impact.”

MSC is active in about nine markets, as demonstrated by the announcement at Seatrade that it was planning to shift its new ship Seaside to Miami, the prototype of which is being built in Italy by Fincantieri. “And we will face one front at a time,” Onorato explained when we asked him whether MSC also intended to attack the Chinese market. “For now we have had a joint venture with the Shanghai International Port Group for several years to create a commercial structure to bring Chinese passengers to Europe. I am not hiding the fact that when the right moment comes, and also based on our fleet, we, too, are thinking of having a presence in China.” But it will take more than two years for the Aponte and Vago company to achieve the necessary growth in capacity, and it will therefore also be a while before they launch into the Chinese market. “It depends on the growth of the fleet, in 2017 we will have new entries into the fleet, but not such large ones that will allow us to move ships from the Mediterranean to China.”