THE ISLAND'S billion-dollar cruise ship industry is in serious trouble. That is the view of the main players in the industry in the wake of announcements from the cruise lines Royal Caribbean and Princess Cruises that come next season they will be redeploying several of their vessels to other destinations.
Minister of Tourism Portia Simpson Miller and the Tourist Board seem unperturbed however. Asked about the latest developments, the Minister told yesterday's meeting of the Standing Finance Committee at Gordon House that these things happen from time to time. When these cruise ships go the thing to do is to get others to come, she said.
The JTB's General Manager in charge of Cruise Shipping, William Tatham, echoed the Minister. The departures would have little, if any impact, on the industry, he said. He should try telling that to the duty-free merchants, attraction owners, craft vendors, transport operators and the many others who have a vested stake in the industry.
Not only will these pull-outs or redeployment, as the JTB prefers, cost the local economy in excess of a billion dollars annually but it could signal, as many fear, the beginning of the end for an industry that has, in the past, demonstrated a level of profitability and dependability. Head tax is US$15 on the average 3,000 visitors landing from a cruise ship.
It is fortunate though that the cruise lines have taken the time to point to the source of the problem it is called harassment. The constant badgering of cruise passengers on the streets of towns like Ocho Rios, arguably the cruise capital of Jamaica, and in popular attractions like Dunn's River Falls which has now become a reported haven for pimps, touts and drug pushers, has enabled the island to be labelled by passengers as one of the worst destinations in the Caribbean.
This is no time for sweeping things under a carpet or pretending that they will just go away. Cruise shipping ranks a close second to the hotels in foreign exchange earning and also in the number of passengers that visit our shores each year. The haphazard and ad hoc approach to the endemic plague of tourist harassment is a scandal. If the Minister thinks that bringing in new cruise ships is the answer she should realise that more visitors will come to see and spread Jamaica's bad name even farther afield.
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