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(本文选自经济学人 May 29 Business P56，权侵删。)

本文可作为考研、雅思、catti英译汉泛读材料

(新闻仅做学英文用途，不代表任何个人立场)

Cruise ships 

Cabin fervour

An early victim of the pandemic seeks to refloat

世界上最大的游轮公司嘉年华添了一名最新成员-- “狂欢节”。这个可以容纳5300名乘客的海上游乐场有6个不同的区域，包括一个“法国区”、24家餐厅和一个过山车。“狂欢节”将于6月初抵达位于佛罗里达州的基地。尽管这比原计划晚了一年，但或许正好赶上该行业的复苏，其受到的打击比其他行业都要严重。

假期的到来让我们初步看到了新冠疫情对国际旅行造成的损害。大多数专家认为，跨境旅游要到2023年才会完全复苏。不过邮轮业可能在2023年前就开始复苏了。“还有什么地方能让你晚上睡觉，每天早上醒来却在一个不同的、全新的、令人兴奋的地方?”嘉年华的老板阿诺德·唐纳德(Arnold Donald)说道。

2019年，8亿外国游客中，约有3000万人登上游轮旅游。尽管如此，邮轮还是在快速增长，在十年间增加了超过1000万的航海游客。疫情爆发前，这一行业利润颇丰。嘉年华(carnival)、皇家加勒比(Royal Caribbean)和挪威邮轮公司(Norwegian Cruise line)三家公司的客运量占全球客运量的四分之三，它们2019年的营收为380亿美元，营业利润总计66亿美元。

由于船队在过去一年中大多处于闲置状态，邮轮运营商一直在烧钱。全球270艘大型游轮中只有少数在海上搭载付费乘客。对唐纳德来说幸运的是，投资者似乎和他一样相信，该行业将重新全速前进。嘉年华在过去12个月里通过债务和股票融资240亿美元，几乎没有遇到什么困难;它的竞争对手也是如此。

现在需求正在回升。嘉年华的老板称，该公司2022年的预订量已回到历史最高水平。邮轮业也在继续扩大长期产能，订单超过了100艘。也许最大的阻力是各国快速变化的国际旅行规则，尤其是在美国。在所有旅游海员中，有一半来自北美，是第二大群体欧洲人的两倍。

唐纳德希望这种情况很快会改变。大型邮轮公司正试图通过游说各国政府，让新冠疫情检测呈阴性的接种过疫苗的乘客登船。

以上内容取自文章前几段，更多内容请阅读下方原文

The latest addition to the fleet of Carnival, the world’s biggest cruise operator, is the Mardi Gras. This ocean­going playground for 5,300 passengers comes complete with six different zones, including a “French Quarter”, two dozen restaurants and a rollercoaster. It is set to arrive at its base in Florida in early June. That is a year behind schedule—but possibly just in time for a revival of the industry, which has been hit harder than just about any other by the pandemic. 

Holidays afloat gave an early hint of covid­19’s damage to international travel. Images of passengers stranded aboard modern­day plague ships prefigured lockdowns on land. Most pundits reckon crossborder tourism will not fully rebound until 2023. Yet cruising may steam ahead before then. “Where else can you go to bed at night and wake up every morning in a different, new, exciting place?” ventures Arnold Donald, Carnival’s boss.  

A break at sea is a small niche of the global tourist industry. Of the 800m or so foreign holiday­makers in 2019, only around 30m ascended a gangway. It was, though, growing fast, adding over 10m more seafaring tourists in a decade. And before the pandemic drowned the business in red ink, it was lucrative. The three companies that transport three­-quarters of all passengers—Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line—raked in combined operating profits of $6.6bn on revenues of $38bn in 2019.  

With fleets mostly idle in the past year, cruise operators have been burning cash. Only a few of the world’s 270 large cruise ships are at sea with paying passengers. Luckily for Mr Donald, investors seem to share his belief that the industry will roar back full­steam ahead. Carnival has had little trouble raising $24bn of debt and equity over the past 12 months to tide it over; its rivals have also been able to tap the market.  

Now demand is returning. Carnival’s bookings for 2022 are back at the higher end of historical trends, its boss reports. The industry continues to expand longterm capacity. Over 100 vessels are on order; none has been cancelled during the pandemic. Perhaps the biggest headwind is countries’ fast­changing rules for international travel, especially in America. Half of all tourist seafarers are North American, double the number of Europeans, the next largest group, with China and other emerging markets far behind for now. Since the pandemic no ship has been allowed to set sail from an American port.  

Mr Donald hopes that will change soon. Big cruise firms are trying to move things along by lobbying governments to allow vaccinated passengers who test negative for covid­19 to come onboard. That makes recent efforts by lawmakers in Florida to ban companies from using vaccine passports rather unhelpful. The Sunshine State is home to not just the Mardi Gras but also to America’s largest cruise ports.