Project on course for $40b link
THE Gold Coast City Council plan for an offshore terminal at The Spit would be an ideal lure for cruise ship companies to ditch traditional ports and further tap into the $40 billion global market, city leaders say.
Tourism and business boffins say the proposed 1.2km jetty off Philip Park would provide one of the world’s most stunning backdrops – giving views to the city’s 42km of beach – and ease headaches for boat companies in some of Australia’s largest cities where congestion is a major issue.
“You cannot pay for the sort of publicity we would get from people getting off the ship and taking their pictures with the Gold Coast behind them,” Gold Coast Combined Chamber of Commerce president Martin Brady said.
“The ability to come to the Gold Coast rather than Brisbane or Sydney would certainly be appealing, simply from a visual point of view.”
NSW this month explored options to expand its cruise ship facilities to grotty Port Botany because of Sydney Harbour’s overcrowding crisis.
By the end of autumn, a staggering 336 cruise ships are due to visit Sydney where the cruise industry is worth nearly $3 billion a year.
Port Botany is far away from Sydney’s CBD and has the city’s cargo berths, dirtiest beach, the airport’s main runway, a paper mill and chemical storage. In contrast, the proposed Gold Coast terminal would be just 5km north of central Surfers Paradise.
Gold Coast Tourism chairman Paul Donovan, currently in China, also backed the project.
“As a piece of tourism infrastructure this would be the perfect location,” he said.
According to figures in the Australian Cruise Association’s 2015-16 annual report, 24 million people take cruises each year, up 68 per cent in the past 10 years. In 2014, they spent $37.1 billion.
The number of Australians taking ocean cruises worldwide increased by nearly 15 per cent in 2015 to reach a record one million passengers.
These figures came on the back of a 42 per cent hike in domestic cruise numbers.
Acting Mayor Donna Gates said the city’s coastline would prove a more attractive option over Sydney’s industrial port.
“The beauty of the Gold Coast is without rival,” she said.
Cr Gates said Mayor Tom Tate had flown to Sydney and met with cruise ship operators about servicing the Gold Coast terminal.
Construction, if approved, would begin in 2019 and would feature a two-storey terminal building on 6ha of public land, a dive platform and pedestrian walkway. It would include an 800m rock wall, “safe swimming beach” and wharf parallel to The Spit.