In an eye-opening remark, a prime official from Nassau Cruise Port mentioned the port has “failed” in offering experiences, companies, and worth to cruise friends. The declare is an attention-grabbing one, however would cruise passengers agree with the reasoning?
Nassau Is a Failure?
According to a report from The Nassau Guardian, the cruise vacation spot has been described as a failure by Nassau Cruise Port Limited Chief Executive Officer Mike Maura Jr. Maura’s remarks, that are fairly condemning of the port expertise and operational capability, had been a part of a panel for the twenty third annual Bahamas Business Outlook financial convention, which passed off on January 19, 2023.
“Only by God’s grace, that being the geography, being our water, being our beautiful beaches, our warm weather and our wonderful smiles, are we getting the volume of tourism traffic that we receive, because we fail miserably in our service,” Maura mentioned.
Maura cites an undisclosed “recent survey by cruise lines of regional cruise ports” that signifies Nassau is ranked as next-to-last of 20 ports, outranking solely Freeport.
“Nassau cruise port is incapable of providing experiences, services, and value to 26,000 people, we might be able to accommodate 5,000, 6,000, 7000 people,” mentioned Maura. “But that still leaves another 15,000 to 20,000 people saying ‘what can I do, where can I go?’ We get it every single day.”
While the pier space of Nassau has been renovated in recent times to accommodate extra cruise vessels with ease as freight visitors was moved elsewhere, Maura claims that native sights and retail areas have suffered, and haven’t acquired the event and upgrades that will make them extra enticing to cruise passengers.
He additionally says that cruise strains themselves are an “obstacle” for the nation’s cruise tourism, believing that the cruise strains want to management the expertise moderately than allow the nation’s pure attraction to take heart stage.
Is the Nassau Cruise Port CEO Right?
Nassau is the fifth busiest passenger cruise port on the planet, welcoming greater than 3.5 million friends per yr. With so many friends visiting the capital metropolis of The Bahamas, how can it’s a failure at offering experiences to friends?
Of course, it’s true that Nassau is usually a very crowded vacation spot, notably on days when a number of giant ships are in port concurrently. For instance, on Saturday, January 28, 2023, the port is scheduled to host six cruise ships. Four are Royal Caribbean vessels – Liberty, Harmony, Mariner, and Brilliance – and they are going to be joined by Carnival Liberty and Disney Wish.
Together, these ships will convey greater than 23,000 friends to the island, all for just a few hours of seashores, buying, eating, and shore excursions. At instances like these, not all friends could possibly benefit from the excursions and experiences they would like, as native tour operators could promote out shortly.
It should be remembered, nonetheless, that not all cruise friends select to get off their ship whereas in port. Guests who could have visited Nassau just lately or continuously could as a substitute desire to remain aboard the ship to get pleasure from onboard facilities. This doesn’t imply that Nassau is essentially a “failure” as Maura claims, solely that it doesn’t all the time attraction to each visitor – as no cruise port does.
It might also be true that Nassau may have a larger number of tour choices, notably specializing in native sights that provide distinctive experiences for guests. Maura claims that native websites just like the historic forts and water tower haven’t been developed into viable, enticing experiences, a transfer that needs to be undertaken even when a public-private partnership is critical.
Yet cruise strains coordinate with native tour operators to supply a variety of shore excursions, together with seaside breaks, snorkeling, catamaran crusing, dolphin encounters, deep sea fishing, stingray visits, jeeps excursions, and historic strolling excursions, and extra.
As for the declare that cruise strains are looking for to regulate the expertise, it’s true that a lot of cruise strains have leased islands from The Bahamas with the intention to develop their very own personal locations, reminiscent of Royal Caribbean’s Perfect Day at CocoCay, Norwegian Cruise Line’s Great Stirrup Cay, and Disney Cruise Line’s Castaway Cay.
These personal locations do nonetheless convey nice financial profit to The Bahamas, although maybe not as a lot as if the nation developed its personal infrastructure to raised entice friends.
Do you agree or disagree with Maura’s claims about Nassau as a failure? Visit the Cruise Hive Boards to hitch the dialog about this in style port of name!