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Contact:
Julita Peter
Wednesday, August 29, 2007 – Saint Lucia is set to record its highest
number of cruise arrivals during the 2007/2008 period with some five hundred and
fifty- six thousand passengers, the highest since 2001. At a press conference on
Monday August 26th, on “the state of the local cruise sector”, Acting General
Manager of the Saint Lucia Air and Sea Ports Authority, SLASPA Sean Matthew
explained for the first time ever in the cruise industry Saint Lucia would be
maintaining five hundred thousand passengers in two years. Eleven new
vessels are expected to make calls to Saint Lucia over the next three years,
among them “Carnival Celebrity,” “ Holland America” and “Royal Caribbean,”
totalling 1.7 million passengers. The cruise sector Matthew said presents a huge
market growth that Saint Lucia can tap into.
The largest cruise companies referred to as “Big three” which include “Royal
Caribbean International,” “Carnival Corporation” and “Star Group” are the main
cruise lines operating in the Caribbean. The Saint Lucia Air and Sea Ports
Authority meantime has been responding to concerns regarding the redeployment of
Carnival Destiny to the Dominican Republic, resulting in a slight decline of
about 8%. The vessel made its inaugural call to Saint Lucia last year with a
year round weekly visit, constituting close to one hundred and thirty thousand
passengers, and is one of 79 vessels belonging to Carnival Corporation. But the
SLASPA official has allayed all fears, stating that the arrival of the new
vessels would pick up the slack.
“In the industry we always make it an issue if any particular vessel pulls out
and goes to a new location. What we try to do is to augment that by getting the
best possible scenario from the “Carnival” or its associates in order to bring
up the numbers and “Carnival Corporation” has been very, very responsive to
sending additional calls to Saint Lucia,” Matthew added.
“In the industry ships will cancel, will relocate because it is a business. The
revenues that the “Destiny” gains from going to Dominican Republic through
European travellers are far greater than they can get out of a Puerto-Rican
destination in terms of a home port,” he added.
There are lots of initiatives to be undertaken in the local cruise sector, one
of which is home porting. SLASPA is currently looking at all the facets of
tourism generally which include cruise, yachting, and stay over in order to
provide an exceptional service that supports all the other sectors.
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