The Chairman and CEO of Royal Caribbean, Richard Fain, has asked agents not to panic about the coronavirus (Covid-19) in a video released on social media.

In his message, Fain stressed that his group’s brands and agents “will get through this difficult time together”.

He said: “This is a tough time – a really tough time – and all of us know it because all of us are going through it together.

“And after enough challenging days for your business, after reading enough of the endless media reports about coronavirus, it’s really easy to think that the world is coming to an end. Well I have a spoiler alert – it’s not.

“We’re all spending time worrying, and that’s natural because we’re in a storm and when you’re in the middle of a storm, it certainly feels like it’ll never end.

“But, as with most storms, it gets worse before it gets better, but it’s hard to remember that this too shall pass. And while the virus is something to be taken seriously, it’s not a cause for panic – not in a personal sense and not in a business sense either.

“As far as the business impact on our business, it ain’t pretty. In fact, to use a technical term I learned in business school, it sucks.

“Like you, we’re hurting. We’ve had to cancel cruises, lost revenue and our people are putting in long days looking our for the health and safety of our guests and our crew.”

However, Fain added: “We’ve absolutely sailed through rough waters like this before and we’ve weathered every storm side-by-side with you. We all vividly remember dealing with all the impacts of 9/11 had on our revenue and on our operations.”

Earlier in the year, the cruise line warned of the impact the virus will have on its yearly profit as bookings slowed down.

It revealed that the measures will have an estimated impact on the financial performance for 2020 of approximately $0.65 per share, and if it cancels all of its remaining sailings in Asia through the end of April, it would impact 2020 financial performance by an additional $0.55 per share.