Cruise line plan to avoid swamping small towns
A cruise line bringing almost 100,000 passengers to New Zealand this coming summer says the industry needs to be careful not to swamp smaller ports as vessels get bigger.
Princess Cruises’ largest and newest ship, the Majestic Princess, which carries almost 5000 passengers and crew, will make its maiden voyage here in September.
Akaroa residents have complained about the small port town being swamped by cruise visitors and tour buses, and some have called for an end to ‘‘two ship’’ days at the height of the season.
Princess Cruises’ senior vicepresident for Australia and New Zealand, Stuart Allison, said the company was mindful of the impact ships had on smaller centres such as Akaroa, and had worked hard to increase shore excursions getting guests off the beaten track.
‘‘The cruise lines have a responsibility as the ships get larger to work with operators to develop tours that take guests beyond the marque destinations, because a ship with 4000 people getting off in a port is going to make a fairly big difference, compared to 2000, if everybody is going to exactly the same sites.’’
An example of that was a new Tauranga tour featuring awardwinning Ma¯ori chef Eru Tutaki, who will take passengers to forage for food and then create a threecourse degustation menu.
This season the company is also introducing two new overnight shore excursions taking passengers to Barrier Island for star gazing, and on a Lord of the Rings tour in the South Island.
Allison, who spoke at a cruise industry conference in Blenheim yesterday, said the economic benefit from visiting ships was huge.
‘‘This season, on average, each port call around New Zealand for a Princess ship will inject half a million dollars into the local economy. The Majestic Princess will inject more than $100m into the New Zealand economy this season, bringing just under 100,000 passengers.’’
He also expected the Majestic Princess, which has more premium state rooms, to carry a greater proportion of higher-spending North American and European visitors.
‘‘We’re attracting more discerning customers so we’d hope that that brings bigger wallets to spend on experiences.’’
Getting older Australians, who had perhaps already visited New Zealand, to splash out on shore excursions was a matter of developing tours that appealed to them.
‘‘We need to understand why they don’t spend. If we can find experiences they will enjoy and haven’t done before, then I can’t see any reason why we can’t get these guests to spend more.’’
New Zealand’s rapid growth in Chinese visitors was likely to be reflected in the cruise market.
‘‘The cruise industry in China is absolutely booming and we think in time they will want to cruise further afield,’’ Allison said.
‘‘The trouble with New Zealand is that it’s a two-week round-trip from Sydney, so we have been exploring options as to whether we could make places like Lyttelton or Wellington turnaround ports such that we get guests cruising from Sydney to Wellington or Lyttelton, then guests cruising back to Sydney from Wellington or Lyttelton.’’
‘‘A ship with 4000 people getting off in a port is going to make a fairly big difference, compared to 2000.’’ Stuart Allison, Princess Cruises