Paul Strachan
It's been 20 years since Paul Strachan, founder and owner of Pandaw River Expeditions, first started operating river cruises along Myanmar's Irrawaddy River. Now, Pandaw is once again seeking to explore new river routes in Southeast Asia and India. Travel Weekly's Michelle Baran caught up with Strachan to get his take on how the river cruising business is changing.
Q: How did a Scotsman get involved with operating ships in Southeast Asia in the first place?
A: My father was an engineer for a Scottish engineering company, and they were building power stations in Burma [now known as Myanmar] in the '70s and early '80s. And that's when I discovered Burma ... Then, 20 years ago exactly, my wife and I started running trips in Burma. We didn't really set out to run a business or anything. We hired a boat, went up the river, had a great time, and then people started calling us. And so we started doing it commercially.
Q: Why have you never gotten away from that classic steamboat-style ship design?
A: There are two reasons why we stick with this. Comfort is one of them, because you get air that blows right along the ship. Our passengers, whether they be Americans or Australians or Brits, they want fresh air, they want to be outside, they spend most of their time outside. People interact, they talk to each other. So, there is first of all that comfort and sociability. But secondly, there is safety. These shallow-draft vessels can very easily capsize. You want to create and design these ships with the ability for air to blow through them, rather than against them.
Q: It seems that in the past few months Pandaw has been rolling out new destinations at a rapid pace. What is the strategy?
A: You're absolutely right. In the last year I thought, "Gosh, we'd better do some more pioneering stuff." So, it's exciting times. We're opening up Laos, we're building a ship there. ... And then we've got the Red River, up in the north of Vietnam. At the moment, we're just chartering other people's ships [in India]. ... The trouble is there's not enough rivers out there. We're running out of rivers.
Q: Where do you see the Asia river cruising boom headed?
A: I ask myself that question every day. I wish I knew. You can compare it a bit with European river cruising, but it's not the same. European river cruising, it's still expanding, people are still building ships, it's still growing. But Europe is so much closer to America. You jump on a plane and you're in Europe in six hours, whereas Southeast Asia is 20 hours away. So you're not going to get the same sort of repeat business in Southeast Asia from Americans that you get in Europe. I think this is the huge difference. I think there has to be a point where it peaks, and it's overcapacity. And that's a very bad place to be. Because then people start discounting.
Q: What impact is this surge of newbuilds on the Mekong and Irrawaddy rivers having on the destinations?
A: What we've seen on the Mekong, and it's already happening in Burma, it starts off as very upmarket. It's quite an exclusive product. But then you get that sort of mass market coming in, big ships coming in and then it sort of spoils it for everyone. Hundreds of people are getting off, and it's trashed. The villages are trashed. The environment and the cultural thing is trashed. And it's just really sad to see this happen.