For the 2023 season, Vancouver is anticipating a document 334 ship calls, most of that are homeported, in line with Mandy Chan, supervisor of cruise companies for the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority.
“This will be a 9 percent increase over last year,” she mentioned, “which implies we may get greater than 1.3 million passengers. That could be a brand new document for us, assuming the ships sail full.
“We are also expecting a 33 percent increase in three- and four-ship days,” she continued.
“We are completely satisfied to see that the ships hold coming. Vancouver is a stunning vacation spot to go to earlier than or after an Alaska cruise; we have now environment friendly transportation between Canada Place Cruise Terminal and the airport; plenty of lodges; nice eating places; and Alaska is an enormous draw.
“We had no ships in 2020 and 2021; in the meantime, we laid the muse for his or her return with plenty of good work with our tourism business companions and with our native, provincial and federal governments.
“We had a record number of ships last year, 306 calls in total, which was a 6 percent increase from 2019. While we did not expect the ships to sail at full capacity starting up, we did end up with 815,000 passengers, representing 70 percent of what full capacity would have been.”
The port’s earlier finest 12 months was in 2019 with 1.1 million passenger visits.
The 2022 season ran from April 10, with Holland America Line’s Koningsdam being the primary ship name, till November 2, with the final crusing of the Crown Princess.
With all the most important operators within the Alaska market homeporting in Vancouver, the port additionally noticed a number of newcomers, together with luxurious and expedition ships.
Vancouver introduced lately that it’s collaborating in a undertaking together with Seattle, Juneau and a number of other cruise traces to discover the feasibility of making a “green corridor” from Washington State to British Columbia and Alaska to scale back greenhouse gasoline emissions.
In 2022, practically 70 p.c of the ships calling in Vancouver have been shore energy enabled, and most plugged in, in comparison with 50 p.c in 2019. With three berths at Canada Place, two are outfitted with shore energy.
“We saw approximately 24 percent more ships plug in last year compared to 2019,” mentioned Chan.
Work additionally continues exploring a brand new cruise terminal to enrich Canada Place. The terminal is being thought of on the Fraser River, the place bigger ships wouldn’t should cope with the Lions Gate Bridge, Chan defined.
“It’s exciting to be back in business again with cruise, and I am hopeful we can continue to work with our cruise, tourism and government partners to bring innovation to this industry to resume the work of building a successful and sustainable future for cruising in Vancouver.”
Excerpt from Cruise Industry News Quarterly Magazine: Winter 2022-2023