Fusey |
Sep 28, 2009 4:23 PM |
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Originally Posted by OneMetropolis
(Post 4476647)
Beside this thread needs some pessimistic views anyway everyone on here is to starry eyed and enthusiastic.
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San Diego losing year-round cruise ship
Carnival shifts home port to Alabama for 2,052-passenger Elation
By Lori Weisberg
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. September 28, 2009
Come spring, San Diego will lose its only year-round cruise ship and along with it a bevy of bargain excursions to Mexico. Chalk it up as another casualty of the economy.
Carnival Cruise Lines has decided to relocate its 2,052-passenger ship Elation from its home port in San Diego to Mobile, Ala. There it will cruise to Mexican destinations, including Cozumel, off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula for four- and five-day itineraries.
Although heavy discounting of the trips originating in San Diego was drawing passengers, the revenue fell short of Carnival's expectations for a year-round cruise program, said spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz.
“How much revenue we generate on a ship is a huge factor in where we base a ship and in what programs we operate,” de la Cruz said. “This program has been underperforming over a substantial period of time. While onboard revenue is important, more important is the pricing we get for the ticket.”
California's battered economy, which has cut deeply into consumers' willingness to spend money, especially on travel, has driven business down, de la Cruz said.
The cruise line will continue to operate its Spirit ship on a seasonal basis in San Diego. That ship makes eight-day trips to Mexico between October and March.
“The shorter cruises draw mostly drive-in business versus fly-in, and the business we get from the state where the ship is based is very critical to a program's success, so given the state of the economy, particularly in California, we think that's likely a big factor here,” de la Cruz said.
San Diego Unified Port District official Rita Vandergaw said another factor was the sharp drop-off in travel to Mexico, which has suffered from the swine flu scare and an escalation of drug-related violence in Baja California.
The planned departure of the Elation by the end of April is a financial blow to San Diego, given the millions of dollars generated by visiting passengers and the cruise line itself.
A 2005 study conducted by the Port District found that each cruise ship contributes $2 million to the economy. Multiply that by the 78 stops the Elation makes in San Diego during a year, and that's nearly $160 million in lost revenue, said Vandergaw, who manages the cruise program for the Port of San Diego.
“I don't know if people understand how much of an impact it is,” she said. “The passengers spend a lot of money when they're here, and the cruise line spends a lot of money in the area through jobs and services that they purchase, like the longshoreman jobs, the taxicabs, the shuttle services, the suppliers that provide goods to the terminal, the truckers, the florists.
“It's extremely disappointing.”
A bit of good news was the debut last week of Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas, an eight-year-old, 2,500-passenger ship that will be making about 30 round-trip cruises to Mexico from San Diego, starting with four- and five-night trips to the Mexican Riviera through Nov. 16, said spokeswoman Lyan Sierra-Caro.
After that, the ship also will offer longer itineraries of nine to 12 nights through May to such destinations as Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan.
“We started this year to be year-round from Los Angeles, so we thought it was important to have another West Coast option with a different itinerary,” Sierra-Caro said. “San Diego is a great source market for us, and it's an easy destination for people to fly into.”
With the departure of the Elation, the port estimates that the number of ships coming into San Diego for long and short cruises will fall to about 200 over the course of a year. Other cruise lines that pull into San Diego include Holland America and Celebrity.
The schedule for the next fiscal year has yet to be finalized, Vandergaw said.
Given the port's dogged efforts to attract new cruise lines, it's a shame to have lost the Elation, said Joe Terzi, president of the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau.
“When passengers get off the ships, they're down in the Gaslamp, in the restaurants, Horton Plaza mall. It's a good economic engine,” Terzi said. “It just breathes more life into the waterfront and brings more businesses, so it's something we don't want to see disappear from San Diego.”
That isn't about to happen, said Vandergaw, who is hoping a new $28 million cruise ship terminal now under construction at the Broadway Pier will add some bayside appeal for San Diego.
It will allow one cruise ship to be berthed there, but it will be a far-better space for accommodating cruise lines and their passengers, she said. Vandergaw's hope is that once the building is completed by the end of next year, the Port District would be able to start work on upgrading the much-larger B Street Pier, though a plan has not been approved nor has financing been lined up, she said.
The Port District earlier this year was courting the Walt Disney Co. in hopes of persuading it to bring its planned West Coast cruise operations to San Diego. The Disney Cruise Line ultimately opted for the Los Angeles area.
“You have to have facilities that meet the cruise lines' standards, and the lines have said we don't meet their standards,” Vandergaw said. “Carnival loaned us $12 million to improve our facilities to meet their standards, and we still have a ways to go.
“Losing this business (from Carnival), I think, is cyclical, and it happens when economies contract. I'm confident we'll have the business back.”
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http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stori...d-cruise-ship/
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