Minister of Tourism, the Honourable Haydn Hughes, was recently engaged in a CTO Conference in the Cayman Islands where matters pertaining to Caribbean tourism trends were being discussed.
One of the subjects discussed at the conference was the matter of the benefits or drawbacks relative to cruise tourism. The Honourable Minister made a resounding objection to this sector being part of the Anguilla tourism experience.
The Tourism official said at a “Destination Media Briefing”, during the conference, that the revenue generated from cruise tourism is not worth the environmental impact.
He noted: “It is a given. It is not even debatable that cruise tourism does have a negative impact on the overall environment. You have to weigh what you would benefit out of cruise tourism and what will be the drawbacks.”
Mr. Hughes told reporters that cruise tourism is not good for Anguilla, which has positioned itself “in a particular sphere where you want to have the high end tourism features which actually make a lot more revenue for the destination than cruise ship visits.”
To be more explicit in his objection to the cruise sector, Mr. Hughes in a later conversation with The Anguillian stated: “On top of the pollution caused by their exhaust fumes, cruise ships have been caught discarding trash, fuel, and sewage, directly into the ocean on numerous occasions. Anguilla has suffered for decades from a crisis of a lack of enforcement. Simple regulations and laws are largely ignored in certain areas. Litter and derelict vehicles, for example, still plague us.”
In terms of the environment, the Minister again observed: “Last year, the German watchdog Nabu surveyed 77 cruise ships and found that all but one of them used toxic heavy fuel oil which the group described as the ‘dirtiest of all fuels’, causing additional pollution of the atmosphere.”
“Further,” the Minister stated, “our physical infrastructure remains antiquated. Infrastructure for cruise tourism is largely undeveloped and so the burdens for large scale cruises far outstrip the benefits.”
He remarked that upwards of 90% of revenue generated by passengers is retained by the cruise ships alone, and it is widely known that the highest spending in the islands amounts to less than $180 per passenger.
Also, the Minister observed that cruise tourism would not benefit areas that depend heavily on tourism, such as taxis, since the cruise companies usually contract their own transportation providers. Neither would cruise tourism benefit restaurants since cruise tourists spend only a few hours on the island, and most of them return to the ship for lunch.
“Anguilla is uniquely positioned,” he touted, “and our product is worth defending and protecting as the benefits from our brand of tourism far outstrip any marginal benefits from the mass cruise sector.”
