The Anguilla Government is pursuing an undertaking it gave to revisit the island’s cruise policy and a number of other policies associated with tourism.
This was stated by Parliamentary Secretary, Tourism, Haydn Hughes, during the visit on Thursday, January 26, of the cruise ship Silver Cloud, owned by Silversea Cruise Line with headquarters inMonte Carlo,Monaco, andFort Lauderdale,Florida.
“When you think about tourism, it isn’t only about marketing and promoting Anguilla as a tourist destination, but it is also bringing people toAnguilla,” he stated. “In order to bring people toAnguilla, you have to look at all avenues; and the cruise ship industry is one of those avenues that we have embarked upon as you can see today; and it is something that we will continue to move forward with.
“This is an ultra luxurious cruise ship, with290 passengers, most of whom came ashore, have never heard aboutAnguillabefore and will come back as long-stay visitors. This is the type of niche market that we want to embark on and this is what we will continue to pursue. We hope to increase the frequency [of the visits of cruise ships] instead of one every month, one a week, … but there are glitches we need to iron out and those glitches will be ironed out. So far, the crew and passengers are happy. Even though a particular tour operator dealt with the ground-handling, a number of taxi-drivers have been going back and forth with some of the passengers touring around the island. That is indeed good and a good day forAnguilla.”
He said that just recently there was a cruise ship conference inSan Juan, Puerto Rico, at which Anguilla was represented “to put out an olive branch to the cruise lines thatAnguillais indeed open for business. Next month there will be a follow-up meeting during which Anguilla’s North American Marketing Representative has been instructed to have initial discussions with cruise liners to see how we can fully maximise the benefits forAnguilla.”
The Silver Cloud, which is now on a Caribbean cruise, was welcomed by Mr. Hughes on behalf of the Government and people ofAnguilla. He told the Cruise Consultant and Hostess, Isabel Rodriquez, after an official tour: “We are indeed happy to have you in our jurisdiction. We hope that this is the beginning of many trips toAnguillaand we are very excited to see one of your beautiful ships in our waters.” He told her thatAnguillawas rated “as having the best beaches, and some of the best diving [sites], in the world and the culinary capital of the world”, and was therefore a good destination to visit.
Replying, Ms. Rodriquez said: “On behalf of the captain, crew and staff of the Silver Cloud, we are delighted to be here for the first time and hopefully the first of many.”
Silversea Cruise Line owns a fleet of six ships. The first, Silver Cloud, was launched in 1994 and its sister ship Silver Wind was launched in 1995.Both ships have a total capacity of 296 passengers each. “Our fleet kept expanding in the years 2000 and 2001, when Silver Shadow and Silver Whisper were launched,” Ms. Rodriquez said. “These two are sister ships and have a maximum capacity of 392 passengers. In 2008, we expanded our fleet into the expedition market. We purchased what we called, back then,Prince Albertthe Second, now called the Silver Explorer, which specialises inAntarcticaand the Artic and is the most luxurious expedition ship in the world. In 2009, we launched our largest and newest ship, the Silver Spirit, which carries a total of 540 passengers, but still falls into the category of small intimate vessels.”
