By YOURI KEMP
Tribune Business Reporter
ykemp@tribunemedia.net
AN international financier with experience in infrastructure projects believes Nassau needs more than a new cruise port if it is to become a hub for home porting by cruise lines.
Andre Wright, executive vice president of Standard International Group, told Tribune Business there needs to be new facilities to cope with the numbers of passengers arriving here to join cruise ships.
Mr Wright said: “We have to look at this not only from the economics of the cruise line, but what are going to be the health and safety and reopening protocols for the islands that those ships are going to be destined to.
“Those passengers’ expectation is that they’re going to be able to get off if they want to or not. You can’t book a trip to thinking you are going to a destination and you can’t get off. That’s not going to be good, and The Bahamas needs to be careful because if they start home porting the question is are the logistics and the infrastructure ready?”
Mr Wright said more facilities need to be in place to receive passengers through the airports who come to take a cruise from The Bahamas. Also, there needs to be adequate inventory for people who overnight and then take a cruise.
He said the upcoming cruise sailing year will be “challenging” based on current CDC guidelines. People projecting recovery for the cruise industry this year are just wishful thinking, he said,
“For recovery, no way. Their targeted start date for 50 percent maximum passengers is for June and by that time the year would already be halfway completed, so do the math. It just doesn’t work.”
Mr Wright also said all of the cruise lines have been affected by not being able to sail for over a year and a lot of them are in debt.
“They have had to retrofit their fleet to meet the CDC protocol,” he said “Now they are only going to be operating at about 50 percent capacity with an increase over 60 day periods depending on how they meet the guidelines.
“Hopefully they can recover some revenue because right now they are burning through a lot of cash, but I’m hopeful that they will be able to recover some economic benefit.”
Royal Caribbean Cruise Line will be home porting in the country this June sailing with no more than 50 percent capacity, but aims to increase that to 65 percent over the following weeks.
So far, Royal Caribbean has reported an adjusted net loss of $3.9bn for 2020 and its chairman, Richard Fain, said: “After 11 months of this pandemic, we all know COVID fatigue is real.”
Comments
tribanon 3 years ago
And the very greedy "all-for-themselves "cruise ship companies are politely telling our corrupt politicians that we as a nation must borrow a whole lot more money in order to help support the building of the very grand type of port they desire for their "all-inclusive" fully attractioned floating palaces. I suspect Minnis and D'Aguilar are already on the phone to the IDB and their Communist Chinese friends to find out how much more our debt strained nation can borrow to help out the wealthy majority owners of the port project and their cruise ship friends.
proudloudandfnm 3 years ago
Lol. Them damned Chinese up in erryting in your werl hey?
Get help man, damn. You dream about dem Chinese too hey? Erry night... Lol...
tribanon 3 years ago
Thankfully I know you really mean the true Communist Chinese, i.e. willing members of the sinister and ruthlessly evil CCP led by Xi Jinping.
Proguing 3 years ago
We can't build a cruise home port facility and when things are back to normal they all go back to the USA.
Sickened 3 years ago
That's the problem right there. We need at least a couple of Days Inn type hotels to accommodate what could be hundreds of guests. The problem is that we don't know how long it will last and when it ends the hotels will sit empty. Government has probably received some sort of commitment but we won't know about it until the inside boys have moved ahead with securing the prime property and building permits.
SP 3 years ago
Five decades of the collaborative across the aisle political corruption and nepotism have finally come full circle to bite the government squarely in the arse.
The government will now invest more millions prostituting the country in favor of the cruise industry, which will vanish immediately after the U.S. gives them the green light to operate from Florida again.
ohdrap4 3 years ago
Lets dredge and excavate paradise island and rose island to build a new harbour. Then we sell all the sand to florida.
The tourists can stay in the harbour moon and corona hotels.
John 3 years ago
The problem with too many things in The Bahamas is it has to be a one shot deal, or at least something that can be completed under the current administration. For something as lucrative. With growth potential and good revenue for the country as well as other players. No cruise plan should not have a scope of at least 20 years. What will the cruise market be like in 30 years. What will the passengers numbers be like. How many boats do will be sailing and wanting to visit. What new innovations and technology will be in place. Both on the ship and on the land once the ships port. And so even though the scope of the plan can be at least 20 years, the actual growth and expansion can be in 3-4-5 year cycles. This is what the port will look like in 2025. Then five years later and so on. What one doesn’t want to end up with is an impassive chunk of concrete that becomes stale and boring even before it’s completed. Take, for example, Singapore Airport. Not only is it new and modern with futuristic technology. But it was designed to be user friendly and offers a customer experience. A lot of the services like check in and baggage handling are automated and it’s common spaces and departure lounges are lush with gardens and art work. And it was not just designed and built overnight. And as one section is completed there are extensions and renovations to keep the airport modern and new. Think about it. Electric scooters or wheel chairs passengers can swipe a card and rent when coming off the ship. Or even eventually, a passenger purchases something in the straw market or store downtown. And a drone heads off and delivers the package to the cruise ship, while the visitor continues to tour downtown. And do all ships that port here have to do so in Nassau?
One 3 years ago
The more we invest in infrastructure for cruise ships the less bargaining power we will have. Cruise ships can threaten at any time to stop coming if we don't meet their demands and thise multimillion-dollar investments would be worthless without the cruise ships.
This is a trick and I hope the Government sees this. The cruise ships should pay for any infrastructure to support their operation. If Atlantis and Bahamar could sail away anytime things got tough Bahamas would be in rough shape.
The cruise ship industry is destructive to the Bahamas. How many Bahamian jobs per tourist is created by the cruise industry versus the hotel industry? Most of the people working on the cruise ships are foreigners.
tribanon 3 years ago
Amen brother.
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