Sarina Bratton, an executive with French cruise company Ponant in the Asia Pacific region, knows how to party – and lobby.
owned by Australian company Aurora, which departed the Argentinian coast for Antarctica on March 15, four days after the pandemic had been declared, with 114 passengers. One person died and many on board ended up infected. Those incidents, combined with Australia’s continuing hard border to the world, meant Bratton and other industry leaders had their work cut out to reboot the cruise sector.
Did she ever fear all was lost? “No,” she says resolutely. “Few people in the industry ever thought that. It was just hugely frustrating as we couldn’t make any progress for a long time.”The work paid off. In April last year, Ponant’s Le Lapérouse made history, sailing into Darwin from Noumea. It was the first international cruise ship of the 2022 Kimberley season after two years of no international cruise ships in Australian waters.
Still, the past four years have been quite the change of pace for a feel-good industry more used to comparing recipes for piña coladas than fighting its corner. “I did all three sports at once, I was very keen,” she laughs. “I had a lot of natural spring, and could get height, be it on a mat or diving board.”
When she came home, her mother rang the Wentworth Hotel, and landed her daughter a job on the front desk. He promised to double her expense account and throw in a car. When she complained she got seasick, he ordered HAL to fly her to Indonesia to sail on HAL Princendam. “I couldn’t believe how nice it was – I still have a blue and white HAL beach towel from those days.“And so, I joined HAL and moved into an office on Bridge Street at a time when cruising in Australia was pretty much all about PO.” Mum Peg railed against the job, telling her daughter it all sounded “a bit fishy”.
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