|
Unique Cruise Solutions The news you need to know |
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||||
|
Cruise News for the Corporate Travel Professional |
January 2011 Edition |
||||||||||||||||
|
Should the public pay for "Good Ideas" gone wrong? |
||||||||||||||||
|
Cruises are great fun for passengers, but courting the industry
can leave taxpayers and communities feeling more than a little seasick. Governments sank $19 million into a cruise-ship terminal for Campbell River, for example, with promises of great economic benefits. It's been largely unused. No medium or large cruise ships have stopped since 2008 and pocket cruisers have rarely visited. Governments have spent several million dollars on an improved cruise-ship terminal in Prince Rupert. This month, the last regular visiting cruise line announced it was dropping the port. And in Nanaimo, a taxpayer-funded, $22-million cruise-ship terminal is set to open this spring. The city hopes it can succeed in attracting and, more critically, keeping cruise ships where others have failed. Despite some $50 million in public funding and considerable marketing effort, Victoria and Vancouver are the only B.C. ports to develop a stable cruise industry. The willingness of governments — federal, provincial and local — to fund these projects is disturbing. The $19 million spent in Campbell River could have been used in any number of more effective ways, including efforts to give the North Island economy a sustainable boost. The cruise industry is lucrative for successful ports. The ships pay fees, the passengers shop and take tours and ships and crew stock up on supplies. But market realities are stacked against the development of multiple B.C. ports of call. The companies are marketing Alaska cruises. That's where passengers want to explore. Places like Skagway and Juneau have developed attractions and tours that feature the state's history and environment. B.C.'s competitive advantage is U.S. shipping laws. Only U.S.-registered ships can operate between two American ports, a rule to keep foreign competitors out and preserve jobs for American workers. But a stop in an international port — in this case, our province — allows the ships to be registered in other countries and to use lower-cost foreign crews. The ships need to stop once in the province. The decision on which port is based on profitability. Companies assess fees levied by ports, the appeal to potential passengers and the revenue that can be reaped by selling to those on the ship. (Cruise operators typically take at least half the retail cost of the tours booked by passengers.) Campbell River didn't meet the criteria. Potential passengers weren't interested, the surveys of those who visited when ships stopped were unflattering, and there were few tours to sell. The Campbell River stop also came close to the end of the cruise, when passengers were packing and taking advantage of their last hours on the ships, reducing revenue from shore-based tours. That's not to say smaller communities are out of luck. But using public money to compete for the same ships is wasteful and produces no net economic gain for the province. In fact, the competition can result in fee cuts and incentives that reduce the overall return. Ross Klein, a professor at Memorial University in Newfoundland, who has written three books on the industry, urged a different approach in a 2005 report for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. He called for a provincial cruise-ship authority to set a strategy to ensure the greatest benefits and widest opportunities, while avoiding costly efforts that simply shifted business from one B.C. port to another. That doesn't mean abandoning smaller ports, he wrote. The authority can help promote their strengths to niche cruise operators and encourage and promote all-B. C. itineraries. It's a sensible proposal — one that could have helped avoid the costly waste and disappointment and set the stage for an even greater contribution from the industry. |
 |
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||
| Up | |||||||||||||||||
|
Worldwide Travel & Cruise Assoc., Inc. 150 S. University Dr. Ste E, Plantation, FL 33324 - USA Tel: +1 954 452 8800 Fax: +1 954 252 3945 EMail: sales@cruiseco.com |
|||||||||||||||||
|
Designed & Published by: Worldwide Media. |
|||||||||||||||||
