Tourism suffering due to ferry service
I WOULD like to respond to the article in the Guernsey Press on 21 May concerning the review that Condor are carrying out this year, which they will finish sometime before Christmas. The arrival figures into Guernsey by sea according to the Visit Guernsey website are 17% down year to date. The arrival figures into the airport over the same period are roughly the same as last year. The arrival numbers from Jersey by sea are 24% down. The figures are not going to improve as you simply cannot book a day trip from Jersey to Guernsey in the peak tourist month of August. The sign that used to exist at the Jersey Harbour advertising day trips to Guernsey has long gone.
I have done the review on behalf of the Guernsey tourist industry. It took me only three minutes. My conclusion is that it is not working.
Last year in my business I listened every day to complaints from tourists about Condor. This year those same tourists have voted with their feet. It will be even worse next year given the problems that the Liberation is having this year.
I am sure that the directors of Condor and Guernsey's civil servants must have done a similar review three years ago of what would happen to UK and inter-island arrival numbers prior to making the decision to purchase the Liberation, and I suspect that this will never be published.
Either they were completely wrong or they knew that local businesses and inter-island sport would suffer, however they just forgot to tell anyone.
The problem with Mr Luxon's statement that Condor may consider purchasing another boat is that the statement will actually put off any other operator from looking at filling the gap.
It means that the politicians and civil servants will probably do nothing for the next six months while waiting for the review.
Should Condor then decide over the winter months that they do not want to purchase another vessel no one will have a contingency plan in place and we will go another year being in the same boat (pun intended).
I like many islanders have signed up to long-term leases giving personal guarantees based on the previous year's status quo of the tourist arrival numbers into Guernsey. I like many others will also do our own review and make decisions based on this year's arrival numbers and realise that our business model will not survive and if nothing is done, look to try and get out of the tourist industry.
I think it is time for the island to tell Condor to stop treating us like children. Most of us are able to make up our own minds about Condor and no longer listen to their polished marketing machine. The only thing that Condor care about is profit and their existing model must be working for them or by now they would have changed it.
We should not listen anymore to Condor. What we need is action not words.
The island needs to put its own plan into place, not Condor's.
To be reliant on just one operator is too risky.
ANDY ISON,
Guernsey Pearl.
