Lining up for success this season
ONE thing we can seemingly guarantee about the cruise liner passenger market is that there will be no agreement over its benefits to the island.
From loss of car parking spaces to the arguable spends that visitors from all over the world might bring to the shopping streets of St Peter Port, there will be those promoting the merit of either side of the discussion.
This season’s first point of contention has emerged immediately the prospective schedule for liner visits has been published – notably the marked absence of the bigger liners to moor outside St Peter Port in comparison with previous years.
This has caused immediate disagreement as to whether it will have an adverse impact on the traders who most benefit from cruise liner business.
Some say it’s a matter of quality pf passenger over quantity, while it appears that nobody can be quite sure about which cruise liner's passengers offer the greatest economic benefit to the island.
Maybe there is one area where we can agree – that we get a good summer and a successful cruise season with minimal cancellations from liners.
For as long as we get passengers off the boats and into the island, there are immediate economic benefits.
But if we don’t have them at all, we can certainly agree that we’ll see nothing in return.