Cruising for a bruising: Akaroa takes on the liners
A seaside town is on the frontline of the ‘over-tourism’ scrap as tensions rise over the cruise behemoths that generate noise as well as income. Amanda Cropp reports.
Atug of war over cruise ships has Akaroa residents and businesses pitted against each other, raising questions about controls on the growing fleet of behemoths plying New Zealand waters.
Anxious about ‘‘over-tourism’’, residents’ groups are lobbying for a moratorium on bookings from April until limits on ship visits and a code of conduct are sorted.
Their list of gripes includes smoke pollution from funnels, noisy on-board discos, seabed disturbance from giant ship propellers, traffic congestion from tour buses taking passengers on excursions, and strains on basic infrastructure like public toilets.
On the other hand, businesses in the small Banks Peninsula town are nervous about a big drop in cruise ship numbers, having hosted thousands of extra passengers while Lyttelton’s earthquake-damaged port facilities were rebuilt.
A new $60 million Christchurch cruise berth is less than two years away, and although the Lyttelton Port Company won’t release booking figures, it says there is strong interest from cruise companies.
The Cruise Lines International Association confirmed calls to Akaroa would drop once the Lyttelton berth opened, but did not specify by how much.
A recent survey of 32 Akaroa businesses suggests up to 50 jobs could be at risk if the current 90 cruise ships a season was cut back to about 35 boutique cruises, as mooted by Akaroa Civic Trust chair Mike Norris.
He says residents are determined to prevent their community going the way of cruise-swamped cities like Venice and Barcelona.
‘‘People feel deeply about the changes to our town from mass tourism. We’re trying to preserve the charm and beauty of Akaroa.’’
He is sceptical about claims of job losses and says cutting cruises will help win back visitors put off by overcrowding on cruise days.
That view has some support from the director of AUT’s NZ Tourism Research Institute, Simon Milne, who has researched the impact of cruises in seven Pacific countries.
He says regular tourists often have a negative attitude to cruise groups arriving en masse.
‘‘It’s not felt so much in Auckland, but in smaller communities like Akaroa, it’s not just the locals who are affected.’’
Darin Rainbird, who owns seven Akaroa businesses ranging from mini-golf to a backpacker hostel, was one of the business owners to complete the recent survey.
He says ‘‘boutique’’ ships with fewer than 700 passengers are not lucrative despite their usually well-heeled clientele.
‘‘They’re not good for Akaroa because there’s negligible spend. In almost every case their excursions are covered by the ship as part of the ticket price, and they generally like to head away from the town.’’
Rainbird accepts the Christchurch City Councilowned Lyttelton Port Company will want to make a decent return on its substantial investment, but believes Akaroa deserves a helping hand if ship numbers drop.
‘‘We want a soft landing for Akaroa, rather than a hard one.’’
Black Cat Cruises chief executive Paul Milligan reckons about a third of his Akaroa customers are cruise passengers, and all up, scenic cruise operators on the harbour carry about 50,000 people a year.
Although passengers would come on day trips to Akaroa from Lyttelton, ‘‘it would be more in their hundreds rather than in their thousands’’.
‘‘We’re the biggest employer in the town and it’s not just the dollars spent by cruise passengers, but the people employed here who pay rent, go to the doctor, have kids at the school.’’
Richard Uttley has three Akaroa hospitality businesses, recently buying The Wharf where he expects to cut a dozen staff if cruise ships drop to 60 a year.
By his calculation those 12 employees pump about $96,000 into the town each year in rental payments alone, and he says the anti-cruise lobby don’t have livelihoods at stake.
‘‘The anger is coming from the ones with time on their hands,’’ Uttley says.
There has been talk of protest action, and the prospect of cruise passengers being tendered ashore to a placard-waving welcoming committee on the wharf is something the council’s tourism promotion arm wants to avoid.
ChristchurchNZ destination manager Loren Heaphy admits it doesn’t know how much of the estimated $34.7m a year annual cruise ship spend attributed to Akaroa visits last year actually ‘‘stuck’’ to the town.
An economic impact survey is planned for the new year to see how to mitigate the negatives for residents whose lives are disrupted, while still giving cruise passengers a good time.
Harry Stronach, a naval architect and chairman of the newly formed Akaroa Ratepayers and Residents Association, says a large number of people are unhappy about a lack of investment by the council, which is forecast to earn $1.16m from ships visiting Akaroa this year.
But dictating cruise ship itineraries is tricky.
‘‘You cannot actually force the ships to go to Lyttelton.’’
Environment Canterbury is responsible for navigational safety, and it can limit the size and number of vessels visiting Akaroa, but it says there is plenty of room in the harbour so there has never been any need to do so.
‘‘Provided that the number of vessels entering the harbour on any given day meets safety requirements, we have no grounds to restrict entry.’’
The city council controls access to the Akaroa wharf used by cruise tenders transporting passengers to and from harbour moorings, and it has budgeted more than $10m to upgrade the facility.
Ships with more than 2000 passengers pay the council just under $13,000 per visit to Akaroa.
The port company would not release proposed berth charges, citing commercial sensitivity, but four years ago a report for ChristchurchNZ’s predecessor estimated them at $48,000.
Stronach concedes that the money may not be a big factor for cruise lines, which is why he favours a code of conduct for those entering Akaroa Harbour.
Southland Regional Council has a longstanding agreement with cruise lines visiting Fiordland and Stewart Island, and only two ships are allowed in waterways at any one time.
Cruise companies risk being banned if they fail to abide by strict environmental conditions, and ships with ‘‘scrubbers’’ to clean up smoke emissions will have to use them this season after complaints about pollution in Milford Sound last summer.
The cruise association has just released a sustainability guide for New Zealand and Australian operators ‘‘to showcase the work being done to preserve the world’s pristine waterways’’.
Six vessels cruising here this season were issued with violations for breaching air quality and water standards in Alaska earlier this year.
Although New Zealand has not yet signed up to an international maritime convention requiring ships to reduce sulphur emissions, the association said most ships fitted with scrubbers would use them in our waters this summer.
Stronach described the sustainability guide as ‘‘a bit of marketing spin about what they’re already doing’’.
Environment Canterbury has received queries about discoloured water around cruise ships in Akaroa, but it says that under the Resource Management Act vessels are allowed to use thrusters as part of normal operations.
However, Stronach says residents want to minimise disturbance to the seabed and it’s clear noise limits in the coastal plan were not set with drum and bass from cruise ships in mind.
‘‘It depends where you are in the harbour, and what the wind is doing, but some people complain bitterly about the noise.’’
Despite increased tensions in Akaroa over the impact of the cruise industry, one thing all parties agree on is that hosting two big ships on the same day is a bad idea.
‘‘No double ship days would be perfect, everybody would be happy with that, including business owners,’’ Uttley says. ‘‘We don’t get double the business.’’