Nassau Cruise Port’s top executive yesterday said it could welcome one million visitors over the five months to year-end 2021 even if vessels call with just 60 percent average occupancy.
Michael Maura told Tribune Business there is a “lot more activity on the horizon” at Prince George Wharf with a total 520 cruise ship visits scheduled between August 1 and year-end as the industry “ramps up” its return to the seas following a 15-month COVID-enforced absence.
He said the cruise lines had indicated that as they become “more confident” in their health protocols and virus-testing regimes, on-board occupancy levels will steadily increase from the present 30 percent throughout the remainder of 2021 until 100 percent is achieved before 2022 is reached.
Pointing to the greater economic impact that increased passenger numbers will have for Bahamian industries and employees reliant on the cruise industry for their livelihoods, Mr Maura confirmed that “the number of ships forecast to berth” in Nassau during the final five months of 2021 presently stands at 520.
“If these vessels sailed at 100 percent occupancy, the 520 equate to approximately 1.7m [cruise visitors],” he added. “We are, however, currently receiving vessels at approximately 30 percent occupancy, but the cruise lines advise that, by year-end, we should see their occupancy reach to 100 percent.
“If the 520 vessels kept occupancy at 30 percent, we would receive just over 500,000 passengers, but if they averaged 60 percent through the year-end we would welcome one million passengers over the remaining five months of 2021.”
The latter target would match the one million stopover visitor ambition that Dionisio D’Aguilar, minister of tourism and aviation, has set for the 2021 full-year, along with the goal of returning the tourism industry to 80 percent of pre-COVID capacity by the 2022 first quarter.
“We definitely have a lot more activity on the horizon this year,” Mr Maura said, which includes Royal Caribbean’s and Crystal Cruises’ respective home porting initiatives. “We have regular conversations, my team and I, with Disney, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Norwegian.
“We’re talking to these cruise lines every day. Today, when we spoke to Disney, they said they will start their cruises to The Bahamas during the first week of August. We will also have MSC ramping up, we’ll have Carnival starting up. On August 6 we expect Carnival’s new ship, the Mardi Gras, which they have highlighted as a business first because it is a liquefied natural gas (LNG) cruise ship.
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