NEWS

(Lebanon, N.H. – June 6, 2023) Travelers are casting off on cruise ships in record numbers, surpassing 2019 levels and breaking sales records. Part of the comeback is due to revenge travel, but smaller ship sizes and access to new, remote destinations are important factors attracting passengers.

“Cruises are back on the travel list. Forty percent of respondents have already taken a cruise since the pandemic started or, if they haven’t, they plan to in 2023,” said Michael Holmes, vice president of marketing for Global Rescue, the leading provider of medical, security, evacuation and travel risk management services.

Smaller cruise ships are rising in popularity. Industry experts expect the number of smaller cruise ships to double by 2030, according to reports. The Global Rescue Spring 2023 Traveler Sentiment and Safety Survey revealed that people taking cruises prefer smaller ships when it comes to vessel size.

Half of cruising respondents (50%) will set sail in small ship cruisers that have a capacity of fewer than 800 passengers. Only 11% of respondents who plan to take cruises this year selected mega-ships with a capacity greater than 3,500 passengers. Seventeen percent of cruising respondents prefer small-midsized ships (800 to 1,499 passengers), followed by a fifth of cruise enthusiasts (20%) who favor midsized ships (1,500 to 2,500 passengers), while an equal percentage choose large ships (2,500 to 3,500 passengers).

“Smaller cruise ships are easier to maneuver and have greater port access compared to mega-cruise ships. The smaller capacity ships open up river cruising, visiting tucked-away harbors, exotic locales, pristine beaches and remote places or ports where larger ships can't reach,” Holmes said.

The Global Rescue survey revealed that the cruise destination preferences among the world’s most experienced travelers include tropical cruises (21%), glacier excursions (14%) and fjord journeys (12%). River, transocean, fall foliage and Panama Canal voyages rounded out the top seven types of cruises travelers have planned for 2023.

Survey respondents are shrugging off the impacts of inflation and predictions of a possible recession. According to the Global Rescue survey, nearly half of the respondents (45%) are planning to absorb the higher travel costs without skimping.

As travelers return to cruising, their concerns are changing, too. Traveler fears of COVID have plummeted, according to the Global Rescue survey. The greatest anxiety among the world’s most experienced travelers who cruise is having an injury or illness unrelated to COVID.

“While confidence to cruise has returned, travelers must remember that access to medical help for an illness or injury during travel at sea is limited. Health safety resources on board a cruise ship are similar to a health center – but it’s not a hospital,” said Jeff Weinstein, a paramedic and an associate manager of medical operations for Global Rescue.

Serious medical emergencies aboard cruise ships that are beyond the capabilities of the onboard medical team require transportation of the individual to a higher-quality medical facility – either by making port or calling a helicopter for an airborne rescue.

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Contact Bill McIntyre at bmcintyre@globalrescue.com or 202.560.1195 (phone/text) for more information.

About the Global Rescue Traveler Sentiment and Safety Survey

Global Rescue, the leading travel risk and crisis response provider, conducted a survey of more than 1,700 of its current and former members between April 25-30, 2023. The respondents exposed a range of behaviors, attitudes and preferences regarding international and domestic travel.

About Global Rescue

The Global Rescue Companies are the world’s leading provider of medical, security, evacuation and travel risk management services to enterprises, governments and individuals. Founded in 2004, Global Rescue has exclusive relationships with the Johns Hopkins Emergency Medicine Division of Special Operations and Elite Medical Group. Global Rescue provides best-in-class services that identify, monitor and respond to client medical and security crises. Global Rescue has provided medical and security support to its clients, including Fortune 500 companies, governments and academic institutions, during every globally significant crisis of the last two decades. For more information, visit www.globalrescue.com.

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(Lebanon, N.H. – May 23, 2023) Business travel is predicted to surge and bleisure travel has taken off, according to the Global Rescue Spring 2023 Travelers Sentiment and Safety Survey. Seventy percent of business travelers responding say their work-related travel will match or exceed pre-pandemic levels in 2023. The majority of business travelers taking the survey (65%) will include bleisure travel, adding extra days to their business trip for personal or leisure activities.  

More than half of responding business travelers (55%) will travel both domestically and internationally for business compared to a year ago when nearly three-out-of-four respondents (72%) had not traveled abroad for business or did not have plans to do so.  

“The business traveler mindset has changed, and employer attitudes have shifted, too. Face-to-face meetings are more effective at establishing and maintaining relationships than virtual meetings. It’s no surprise that domestic and international work-related travel is rising along with bleisure travel,” said Dan Richards, CEO of The Global Rescue Companies, the world’s leading provider of medical, security, evacuation and travel risk management services. 

As business travel increases, so do the challenges facing employers, especially following the pandemic and the rise of remote work. “The biggest management challenge in this evolving environment will be how duty of care plays a role in protecting a location-independent workforce. They have to ask themselves if a set of rules or policies designed to maintain their health, safety and well-being while working is in place,” Richards said. 

The overwhelming majority of business travelers surveyed (72%) say they do not have or do not know if they have a duty of care policy in place. The majority of the 28% of business travelers who say they have duty of care provisions in place have trouble listing what the plan includes. More than half say their policy includes pre-trip destination planning and health alerts. However, fewer than half say security, travel tracking and alerts were available during the trip. 

“Corporate leaders carry a duty of care responsibility to their employees, to take care of them and avoid exposing them to any unnecessary or undue risk. As more workers become location-independent and include bleisure in their business travel trips, the more the firm’s duty of care policies must evolve,” Richards said.  

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Contact Bill McIntyre at bmcintyre@globalrescue.com or 202.560.1195 (phone/text) for more information. 

About the Global Rescue Traveler Sentiment and Safety Survey  

Global Rescue, the leading travel risk and crisis response provider, conducted a survey of more than 1,700 of its current and former members between April 25-30, 2023. The respondents exposed a range of behaviors, attitudes and preferences regarding international and domestic travel. 

About Global Rescue  

The Global Rescue Companies are the world’s leading provider of medical, security, evacuation and travel risk management services to enterprises, governments and individuals. Founded in 2004, Global Rescue has exclusive relationships with the Johns Hopkins Emergency Medicine Division of Special Operations and Elite Medical Group. Global Rescue provides best-in-class services that identify, monitor and respond to client medical and security crises. Global Rescue has provided medical and security support to its clients, including Fortune 500 companies, governments and academic institutions, during every globally significant crisis of the last two decades. For more information, visit www.globalrescue.com. 

LEBANON, N.H. (May 5, 2023) – Kristin Harila, the Norwegian XC skier-turned-mountaineer extraordinaire and Global Rescue Mountain Advisory Council member became the fastest woman to climb all 14 mountains above 8000 meters this week after summiting Cho Oyu. Harila topped the previous record set by Spanish climber Edurne Pasaban in 2010.

“Congratulations to Harila and her ongoing achievements in mountaineering. Her record-breaking history of hard work, perseverance, sacrifice, talent and love of mountaineering is an example for all of us. She is an extraordinarily gifted, focused and spirited athlete and will undoubtedly continue to set new records and bring about fresh innovations to a fast-growing sport,” said Dan Richards, the CEO of The Global Rescue Companies, which has provided Harila with field rescue and medical evacuation protection since 2021.

Harila has a bigger record-breaking plan on her mind. In the spring of 2022, she set out to climb all 14 of the world’s 8,000 meter (26,247 feet) and higher peaks in less than 189 days – and breaking the record held by Nims Purja, a Global Rescue Mountain Advisory Council member. Harila was six months in and two summits away from making history when the Chinese government’s strict zero-COVID policy forced her to stop.

Undaunted, Harila set out in April 2023 for her second attempt to break the speed record. This time she started her attempt in Tibet to mitigate the risk of a repeat of last year’s issues with the Chinese government. Her recent Cho Oyu summit and her April 26th summit of Shishapangma complete Harila’s climbs in Tibet, an autonomous region of China. Harila will now attempt to climb the remaining 12 mountains before the end of October 2023.

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For more information contact Bill McIntyre at bmcintyre@globalrescue.com or +1 (202) 560.1195.

About Global Rescue   
The Global Rescue Companies are the world’s leading provider of medical, security, evacuation and travel risk management services to enterprises, governments and individuals. Founded in 2004, Global Rescue has exclusive relationships with the Johns Hopkins Emergency Medicine Division of Special Operations and Elite Medical Group. Global Rescue provides best-in-class services that identify, monitor and respond to client medical and security crises. Global Rescue has provided medical and security support to its clients, including Fortune 500 companies, governments and academic institutions, during every globally significant crisis of the last two decades. For more information, visit www.globalrescue.com.