[Travelandtourism] Terminal investments paying off for two big port cities

[cheryl echevarria]

Terminal investments paying off for two big port cities
By: Johanna Jainchill
April 13, 2010
For ports wishing to woo cruise ships to their piers, Fort Lauderdale's Port 
Everglades and New York's Manhattan Cruise Terminal offer examples of how to 
lure additional turnarounds.

Port Everglades invested $75 million to triple the size of its existing 
Terminal 18 to accommodate the Oasis of the Seas, in exchange for the 
promise that Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara 
Club Cruises would be tenants for at least 10 years.

Then last week, the port got a guarantee from Carnival Corp. that its brands 
would bring 25.5 million cruise passengers to and from Fort Lauderdale over 
the next 15 years if Port Everglades made significant improvements to its 
four existing cruise terminals.

New York, meanwhile, has poured $250 million into its cruise terminals over 
the last five years, $200 million of which went to upgrading the Manhattan 
piers alone.

NY Cruise, the organization that operates the city's cruise ports, said the 
improvements have led to major increases in cruise ship traffic, including 
more vessels from Europe; the piers had 139 ship calls in 2009, and 
officials expect 196 this year.

These are not the only two locales to invest heavily in their cruise ports. 
Every year at the Seatrade Cruise Shipping Convention in Miami, ports like 
Hamburg, Germany, and countries like Taiwan, Chile and many others, talk 
about the major investments they are making, sometimes with no guarantee 
that any cruise ships will come. The ports making the biggest investments 
are not always as large as Port Everglades and New York. The cities along 
Canada's Saint Lawrence River are investing $156 million into their 
often-tiny ports of call.

"Infrastructure is crucial," said Royal Caribbean International CEO Adam 
Goldstein during a panel at Seatrade.

He noted that while the markets might be ready in places like Brazil and 
Spanish-speaking Latin America, the ports are often not.

Cheryl Echevarria
Independent Travel Consultant
C10-10646

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