Happy Cruises a blight on the Tourism landscape

The company stopped work last week and all operations planned have been suspended while the Happy Cruises website is disabled

SPANISH TOURISM is slowly making a recovery and going from strength to strength with the INE announcing that in August alone there were 4,380,000 overnight stays from visitors of the UK, France and Germany, an increase of more than one hundred thousand over 2010. However not all is joyful in the world of Tourism as Happy Cruises offered a less than smiley face on Saturday when they announced that they would be ceasing operations immediately, with a decision on their imminent future to be taken this week.

During 2011, the troubled Spanish company, which homeports out of Valencia City, expanded their fleet to three ships with the addition of the chartered 21,884 gross ton HAPPY DOLPHIN (ex ORIENT VENUS, DELPHIN VOYAGER, HAINEN EMPRESS) just last May. Along with their other two ships, the 19,093 gross ton, 1992-built GEMINI (ex CROWN JEWEL, SUPERSTAR GEMINI) and the 22,945 gross ton, 1970-built OCEAN PEARL (ex SONG OF NORWAY, SUNDREAM, DREAM PRINCESS, DREAM, CLIPPER PEARL, CLIPPER PACFIC, FESTIVAL), the company had hopes of carrying up to 100,000 passengers a year.

The company stopped work last week and all operations planned have been suspended while the Happy Cruises website is disabled. Spanish media said the company states that the cessation of business is "temporary" and that the administration's desire is to "continue their activity." Happy Cruises competes in the Spanish market with Pullmantur, a division of the Royal Caribbean Cruises group and Ibero Cruceros from Carnival Corporation.
 
Shareholders will vote whether to continue or not with the majority shareholder Globalia having a 20% stake. As we go to press, the company still hope to reorganise and move forward and said that “This week our future is in doubt but the truth is that we are not even in bankrupt, much less in bankruptcy” Local Video Production company Photo Video Spain had also made approaches to Happy Cruises to produce video content for 2012 and along with thousands of passengers are waiting to hear news.

Keith Nicol