Why do some cruise ships sell out at a higher price in an area with a health care crises vs. those with a lower price?

[evag]

I have been monitoring the Asia cruises this month, not afraid of viruses as the chances of catching are rare. I went on a cruise from Africa to the U.K. during the Ebola crises and fares were starting $999 per person for thirty days (we ended up on a back balcony where it was only $3 a day more and when we went up the waters. Captain threw that in-from France to England, it was fabulous seeing both shores.)  Shortly before I went I took a cruse from Galveston and a friend of mine who knew my penchant for traveling, warned me not to go anywhere and get Ebola, the irony was that on the sailing before  a medical worker who worked in a hospital where a colleague got Ebola from someone who came from Africa and was treated there, and although she never met the worker or the patient and never had it, she had to stay in her room (probably to protect her from fellow passengers who were NOT allowed to disembark because the ports wouldn't allow them because of the one woman!)  When I went home, I told my friend, why go 10K miles away to get Ebola when I can get it 1K miles away but I digress.

 

I saw a rate a little over 2K pp on Celebrity for an Aqua suite (for the first time at 2 AM last night) and was going to call my travel agent and a friend to see if he wanted to go but by 8AM it was booked and they only had one other left a Sky Suite at a high price , in contrast on NCL which had much lower prices with more added perks (granted the Celebrity had four more days and additional stops but the price differential was a lot), all categories of cabins that are listed are the same prices as for the past week, and don't seem to be selling so I wanted to have some thoughts from people as to why. 

 

Granted the amenities and type of service is better on Celebrity (for me it's the room service) but given how low the prices are on NCL, is it possible that more of the clientele on NCL are people from Asia especially Chinese so people in the U.S. are reluctant to book on there/  Has anybody on here from other than Asian countries booked on that and can comment.  It shouldn't matter of course if they are Asian locals,  as they would be screened carefully, but there is a chance that they could be more likely exposed to the virus before getting on board.  

[CruiserBruce]

There are far too many variables here, including ones that aren't public knowledge (proprietary info), to even speculate.

[evag]

Thanks for replying, you are right, but think I should be posting this under NCL as those are the passengers who took this cruise.

[Essiesmom]

Variables?  I just had trouble following the thread...of the post.  EM

[Joebucks]

More people die from the flu than they have coronavirus. When you read the facts of what happens with most of these scares, it's not enough for many people to rearrange their life choices.

[Donald]

Cruise prices are based on many variables  - but the prevalent determiner is supply and demand.

If demand is high, the prices go up; low demand pushes prices down.

 

Bear in mind that the cruse lines know that the average cruiser has the attention span of a gnat.

Whatever disaster is imminent, everyone gets very excited for a few days and then moves on to the next imminent disaster.

It is likely that all this will be completely forgotten in a few weeks.

[dogs4fun]

7 minutes ago, Donald said:

Bear in mind that the cruse lines know that the average cruiser has the attention span of a gnat.

Whatever disaster is imminent, everyone gets very excited for a few days and then moves on to the next imminent disaster.

😂

[Underwatr]

1 hour ago, Joebucks said:

More people die from the flu than they have coronavirus. When you read the facts of what happens with most of these scares, it's not enough for many people to rearrange their life choices.

It's too early to tell what the mortality rate is for this strain of coronavirus. You only know how many people have recovered and how many have died (which interestingly is roughly even, by the way) plus people who may or may not recover.

[sanger727]

You are trying to extrapolate cruise sales based on current events which is a flawed theory. Cruise prices change based on supply and demand. If demand for a particular cruise is still high, there is no reason for the company to lower prices based on current events. Norweigan may have had bookings drop to a rate lower than their algorithims predicted they should be indicating a drop for demand and a need to reduce the price while celebrity didn't. I don't think norweigan's customers know something celebrity's customers do not. I don't think Norweigan has both a higher propotion of asian people onboard AND their other customers know that; unless you a looking at an asian specific ship. (Norweigan did in the past create the norwegian joy to be an asian based cruise ship where they built the ship to appeal to that market and chinese was the primary language spoken onboard. I don't think it was easy to find those sailings on english based websites). I do not know if norwegian has a ship like that now but if they do and that's the one you are looking at that that conclusion makes sense. But outside of that, I don't think the statement that norweign has more asian based customers on these cruises AND their other customers know that is true.