ACA and CLIA team up

TIES between the two key bodies representing the Australian cruise industry have become tighter with the imminent release of a combined economic impact study.

The Australian Cruise Association (ACA) announced the collaboration with Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) Australasia at its conference on the Sunshine Coast yesterday.

“Over the past 12 months we’ve talked about the collaboration and better working relationship with CLIA,” said ACA ceo Jill Abel.

“It’s been a fantastic thing to be able to move forward in our discussions around the research picture and we’ve come to the point now where we will be delivering a single economic impact study and hopefully we’ll have that out in the next three to four weeks,” she said.

By combining efforts, the representative organisations would avoid duplication and contrary findings from producing separate studies.

“All of that data will be shared together so we’ll be singing from the same hymn book,” Abel said.

MEANWHILE, the ACA has named Broome as the host destination for its 2018 conference, to be held 12-14 Sep.

The Kimberley gateway was chosen after bid a by Tourism Western Australia.

Abel said regional ports were becoming increasingly critical to the growth of cruise tourism and this had been recognised in the choice of destination.

More in Cruise Weekly on Tue.