I recently read an interesting article in the magazine Skift, written by Rebecca Stone. Titled “Lisbon’s Overtourism Lesson: Living Like a Local Is Not Enough”, the article spoke about both sustainable tourism and how tourism can help preserve minority cultures. In essence, the article summarised that the destination should be in control of its development – a stark contrast against letting tourism define its culture.
Obviously, cruise is just a part of the overall tourism equation. In 2017 there were approximately 1.2 billion global tourists of which only 26.7 million were cruise tourists - but if we start taking control of one component, it becomes easier to make the others work as well.
We all know that cruise is flourishing. Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) has predicted over 27 million passengers to take to the seas throughout 2018 - opening a wealth of new opportunities and economical benefits for all involved in cruise. However, as growth continues on its upwards trajectory, this is still an industry continuing to face questions about destination sustainability.
In short, overcrowding and sustainability in all regions is a genuine concern, including European destinations - but there are solutions.
As a leading port and destination planner, I want to share my insight into the world of destination management and creating a sustainable future for cruise tourism in Europe.
Firstly, let's start with the challenges facing Europe as a region
I firmly believe that one of the biggest challenges facing the regional industry is the size of the vessels that are being built. Cruise lines are building vessels in sizes that we’ve never seen before and ports and destinations in Europe (and in general) are not able to provide the necessary hard and soft infrastructure at the same pace.
While there are approximately 110 new cruise vessels in the order book (being the majority large vessels carrying over 4,000 pax) the capacity in many existing ports has remained largely unchanged and we see little development of new ports and destinations. And, while this comes as a challenge for Europe, I also see it as an opportunity to change the way we look at cruise.
Barriers for European ports and destinations trying to keep up
Traditionally, ports and destinations have acquired a reactive attitude to cruise.
In Europe, ports have had to regenerate existing waterfronts for cruise rather than building new facilities. European port infrastructure near major tourism centers might go back centuries - meaning harbors and piers are just not large enough to handle these new ships. Naturally, the scale of this infrastructure gap might be more pronounced than in cities or harbors that are newer.
European ports are also servicing mixed markets from European, USA and even Asian sources - which ports and destinations are still learning how to handle. Destinations are also up against a belief that because cruise runs on water, the business belongs to the port – a perception held by politicians and other stakeholders in particular. The real economic impact should really benefit the destination and its communities too – not just the port.
In contrast to regions such as the USA, ports recognize the need to invest in cruise (more specifically to modify and redevelop facilities to accommodate larger vessels). These ports have a good understanding of how investments can be translated into larger economic contributions to the destinations. In Asia, ports are learning fast and creating infrastructure from scratch to fit large vessels in line with the vast potential its source market presents.
Additionally (and this fact might be unknown, ignored or even disputed), we are finding that destinations are rarely the drivers of cruise development - meaning ports are often left to fend for themselves, lead initiatives to attract more traffic and deal with cruise in general. Therefore, port executives are becoming the assigned promoters, sales persons and even sometimes representatives (by default) for the destinations.
While there are a number of barriers for European destinations and ports in keeping up with the speed of cruise - it's more important to consider how these now impact the wider industry.
Many cruise lines are now having to shuffle their ships around to avoid congestion in specific ports and marquee destinations – which of course, all cruise passengers and lines want to visit. Congestion is already a reality in a lot of these places - not solely because of cruise, but primarily due to a lack of tourism planning at the destination in general. For the local communities, cruise just seems to exacerbate the problem.
B&A's destination evolution ladder
At B&A we have identified what we call the ‘destination evolution ladder’ where destinations have a starting and an intermediate point before becoming a marquee destination (with opportunities to develop interporting and possibly turnaround traffic).
This model is not a general rule, as we are aware that not all destinations will become marquee destinations. But, we do believe that the opportunities for new destinations to emerge and for existing destinations to go up that ladder and improve their visitation numbers are better than ever. Examples of this include Skagen, and Fredericia in Denmark and Tarragona and Cartagena in Spain.
Unfortunately few ports go through this process and I have noticed that many destinations seem to have been “starting up” forever (with no or little increase of cruise traffic for the last 10 years) and some secondary destinations have been secondary destinations for as long as I can remember with little change on their cruise statistics.
Interestingly, when it comes to land based tourism, some of these destinations have made progress and their numbers have increased - yet cruise is still not a priority.
Making Cruise Welcome session at Seatrade Cruise Med
I'll be moderating 'Making Cruise Welcome' at Seatrade Cruise Med 2018 on the morning of September 20, 2018 in Lisbon together with confirmed panelists so far: Laura Cimaglia, vp MedCruise and BoD responsible for ports, cities & destinations; Elisabetta de Nardo, vp port & destination operations, Silverseas Cruises, Joan Gual de Torrella, president Baleraic islands Port Authority and Michel Nestour, vp, global port and destination development – EuroMed, Carnival Corp.
My ambition is to get away from the blame game and instead start a discussion on how cruise can become part of the solution to solve over-tourism and consequently change the current perception of cruise as part of the problem.
By the end of the session, we should have at least five points on how to improve matters on which all parties can agree - and a key starting point for making those action points a reality.
For a full version of de Carvalho's In My World article please click here. For more information about the Seatrade Cruise Med 2018 conference click here.
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