By Randy Nieves-Ruiz
MIAMI BEACH, USA (AFP): Growing demand for mega-cruiseships is causing increasing headaches for port authorities in major tourist destinations struggling to cope with the ever-larger vessels.
For one, there's the cost of adapting ports to accommodate the floating giants, according to industry experts who gathered last week at the Seatrade Cruise Shipping conference in Miami Beach, Florida.
St. Maarten tourism commissioner Theo Heyliger, summed up the problem in a few words: "mega-ships for mega-ports for mega-bucks. That's what it costs."
He pointed out that authorities in Saint Maarten, the Dutch side of an 95 square kilometer (37 square mile) island shared with France, had barely completed a new cruise terminal in 2000, when they went back to the drawing board to design another port to accommodate the larger ships.
Bill Johnson, who heads the Port of Miami, says he needs 500 million dollars just to upgrade the cruise-ship facilities at the port, which last year handled 3.7 million passengers.
But bigger ports alone are not enough to ease the headache as a growing number of disembarking passengers strain the infrastructure of ports-of-call.
In Saint Maarten, for example, four mega-ships simultaneously offloading 10,000 tourists -- or one fourth of the territory's population -- would cause gridlock on the roads that would be "just too hard to handle," said Heyliger.
In Miami, the port of departure for many Caribbean cruises, Johnson said authorities would have to spend about one billion dollars on a new tunnel in order to cope with the additional road traffic.
With demand for larger ships showing no sign of flagging, industry officials say such investments are crucial if cruise ship destinations want to remain competitive and keep cashing in on the lucrative business.
Demand for the mega-ships shows no signs of flagging as cruise lines respond to increasing demand for on-board activities by offering such amenities as climbing walls, surfing pools and even ice-skating rinks.
"There is a trend, that's obvious ... believe me if they make money, they'll order more," said Luis Ajamil, of the BA firm that builds passenger terminals.
Royal Caribbean is already readying to break the record for the world's largest cruise ship it set when it launched the "Freedom of the Seas" last year. The 5,400-passenger "Genesis" should take to the seas in 2009.
The supersizing fever has also spread to the luxury yacht industry, which is experiencing rising demand for super-yachts that fetch in the region of 20 million dollars each.
The US subsidiary of Dutch luxury yacht builder Feadship, for example, says it received 435 orders for ships of over 30 meters (100 feet) in length last year, up from 87 in 1998. Feadship America says it has an average wait of three years for delivery of ships ordered by its well-heeled clients.
"I think it's frequently an issue of size relating to ego," said Larry Pimentel, chairman of Seadream, which operates two luxury mega-yachts. |
