"The Covid-19 pandemic is still affecting large parts of the world and travel restrictions and quarantine requirements are wide spread and changing rapidly. Given these challenging circumstances and that the developments are unpredictable, Hurtigruten has decided to cancel the remaining of the Antarctica 20/21 season - from January and throughout the first quarter of 2021," the company stated.

The decision follows the announcement by Hurtigruten in September, which announced that it will cancel the remaining cruises in 2020, with plans to restart operations in January 2021.

In addition, Hurtigruten said there was a good demand for Hurtigruten adventure cruises for the second half of 2021 and into 2022, with reservations for 2H 2021 8.4 percent higher than the same period last year for 1H 2020 and reservations for 2022 currently 97 percent higher compared to the same period last year for 2021.

"Many of the guests who have booked expedition cruises with Hurtigruten that have been canceled, have chosen to postpone their trips rather than request a refund and the level of refund claims continue to be significantly below the industry average. Currently, we have approx. EUR 1.5m in unprocessed refund claims," the company added.

Maritime Business World