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Arne Wilhelmsen, a founder of Royal Caribbean Cruises who helped shape the modern cruise industry, has died. He was 90.
The Miami-based company said in a statement that Wilhelmsen died Saturday in Palma, Spain. No cause of death was given.
As a member of the company’s board for three decades, Wilhelmsen saw the potential for the cruise industry to become one of the fastest growing segments of the vacation industry. He helped shift the hub of the industry to warm weathered places like South Florida, instead of transportation centers like New York.
Under Wilhemsen’s watch the cruise line was also the first to include more zany innovations on their ships, such as the first rock climbing wall, ice skating rink and standing surf wave at sea.
He also believed in building bigger and more efficient ships. Royal Caribbean now has 61 ships, including some of the largest cruise liners in the world. This included the megaliner Ovation of the Seas, the largest ship to ever visit New Zealand, whose passengers were among those caught up in the Whakaari White Island disaster in December.
“At a time when the rest of the world thought cruising was a niche use for old transatlantic liners, Arne was already seeing glimmers of the growth that was possible,” said Richard Fain, RCL’s chairman and CEO. “He had a vision of the modern cruise industry when the ‘industry’ might have been a dozen used ships, total.”
Wilhelmsen was born in Oslo, Norway in 1929. After earning an MBA at Harvard University, he worked as a chartering assistant for Norway’s EB Lund & Co. and later as a shipbroker in New York. In 1954, he joined his family’s shipping concern, Anders Wilhelmsen & Co AS, and became its president in 1961.
He helped establish Royal Caribbean in 1968 with his family’s company, along with two other Norwegian shipping companies. In 2003, he stepped down from the board and was succeeded by his son, Alex.
Having shifter most of his operations to the control of his shipping empire to his sons, Forbes estimated the Wilhelmsen family’s net worth to be worth US$1.9 billion. Arne’s cruise empire accounted for US$1.5 of that.
No further details on survivors was listed in the company’s statement, and a company representative did not immediately respond to an email inquiry.
Source: nzherald.co.nz