Royal Caribbean has suspended cruise visits to Haiti's Labadee peninsula for the next seven days following months of escalated gang violence in the country and the resignation of Ariel Henry as prime minister.
According to Royal Caribbean International President and CEO Michael Bayley, the company would continue the suspension as required with three days advance notice to guests sailing on impacted itineraries.
"Due to the evolving situation in Haiti, and in an abundance of caution, we're temporarily suspending our visits to Labadee for our entire fleet," Assistant Vice President Aurora Yera-Rodriguez said in a statement. "We continue to monitor and assess the situation with our Global Security & Intelligence Team."
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Royal Caribbean also told travel agents in an email seen by Reuters that itineraries with stops in Labadee would be replaced with a stop in Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas, or an extra day at sea.
The Haitian resort peninsula-located 128 miles (206 kilometers) north of Port-au-Prince, where most of the unrest is happening-has been leased by the company and represented only a fraction of deployment to the region so the cancellations should not have any significant impact, Morningstar equity analyst Jaime Katz said.
Meanwhile, rival cruise ship firm Carnival does not have any cruise stops in Haiti.
