613 - How the Cruise Industry is Dealing with Record-low River Levels

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

Welcome to Modern Mindset, the show that picks the brains of the world's leading minds to help you unlock yours. Decoding the beliefs and strategies of global experts to give you an updated mindset to make the most of modern life.

Rory McGowan (0:20)

This is Modern Mindset, the show that picks the brains of the world's leading minds to help you unlock yours. My name is Rory McGowan, and last month, Europe saw some of the worst heat waves it's ever seen. One huge consequence of this is record low river levels, which has impacted the travel industry across the continent by making boat travel difficult or impossible. But here in the UK, one company is working on a solution to give more people more notice if a river like the Danube or the Rhine are not able to be traveled across. And this could pave the way for less disruption to local travel and holiday planning.

To talk about what this looks like and how it will affect holiday makers here in the UK, I'm joined by the CEO and the Chief Guest Experience Officer from Riveria Travel, James Golding and Matt Luscombe, who are behind this new approach. Thank you, James and Matt, for coming onto the show today.

SPEAKER_3 (1:13)

Thank you.

Rory McGowan (1:14)

So James, I'd like to start with you, because I feel like a lot of people would have heard about these record low river levels. But as someone who is immersed in this world, can you give a bit of context about how bad it's been over the summer months?

SPEAKER_3 (1:29)

Absolutely, Rory. And like you said, this is historic low levels across both the Rhine and the Danube. And we've been watching this since early July, and it's at certain levels in particular.

So we've been watching all of the gauges that we can across both rivers. And these gauges are at their lowest historic levels. They've never been this low.

And certain areas in particular have been really hard hit. The first being the Rhine Gorge, which is a real highlight for a lot of our guests. The second is the section down towards Baal, in between Speyer and Baal. So that's the Rhine area. And then on the Danube, it's really been Budapest has really been impacted really strongly. So between Budapest and Comoran and as far around as Bratislava, we've had some impact. So we've never had a situation like this before. There have been low levels reported in other years, but never to this impact.

Rory McGowan (2:30)

And I imagine that's had quite a significant impact on your business over the summer.

SPEAKER_3 (2:36)

Yes, absolutely. We've found creative ways, absolutely to get as many of our guests traveling as we can.

But let's be honest here, we've had to cancel some of our cruises.

And that's been through choice, because we believe that river cruising is about being on the river. It's about sailing the rivers and not just being able to hop between ships or hotels. So if we believe that the experience we would give our guests wouldn't align to our five-point promise, then we have taken a decision to cancel some of the cruises. That being said, we have been very innovative in terms of some of the other itineraries that we've put together. So we do sailings on the Moselle and on the Main River, which are locked systems, so they can sail as planned. And also, we have ships on the Seine and on the Douro, which haven't been impacted at all. So we've been fortunate the fact that we have some ships that have been impacted, but due to our other rivers and also our land tour and yacht program, we're still trading positively.

Rory McGowan (3:47)

Well, that is good. And there does seem to be more good news on the way, which is where I want to bring you, Matt, into the conversation, because these are not going to be the only heatwaves we experience, right? Next summer, they've already made reports about, you know, we should expect similar instances next summer. Can you talk us through, then, what this new technology is to essentially make sure that we've got more foresight to see what the river levels are in places like the Rhine and the Danube?

SPEAKER_3 (4:18)

I think anytime you have problems or challenges in life, the key is innovation. And I think you're right that over time, we will see these sorts of events more often. It won't happen every year. It's never happened before. It's not going to happen every year.

But there's going to be innovation at a national level. So the reason why many of the rivers that we sail on are completely unaffected by this is because, as James said, they're lock systems. And governments have prioritized investment in locks in order to sustain their rivers, which are hugely important commercial waterways. River cruise ships are less than 5% of the boats on the Danube. The Danube is a hugely important commercial waterway for several European countries. One of the biggest challenges the Hungarian government has faced has been the near close down of a nuclear power plant that supplies, I think, 35-40% of the electricity to the country. So I can imagine there'll be infrastructure investments that protect these rivers in the future. Looking close to the home, we've had to innovate every day the last sort of six to eight weeks.