• Targets bringing an additional 4m by 2030

• Urges nation to seize home port possibility

• Says collaboration key to maximise spend

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Royal Caribbean is aiming to triple its Bahamas arrivals to 6m by 2030, a senior executive disclosed yesterday, adding that this nation must seize its opportunity to become a “permanent” home port base. 

Russell Benford, Royal Caribbean’s vice-president of government relations for the Americas, pledged to Tribune Business that the extra 4m passengers it plans to bring to this nation by 2030 will generate an additional $1bn in spending that stays with Bahamian companies - not the cruise line.

While Royal Caribbean has projected a $1bn economic impact over a ten-year period for its planned Royal Beach Club on Paradise Island (see article in tomorrow’s Tribune Business), Mr Benford said the cruise industry’s projected post-COVID growth gives it little choice but to seek out new home ports outside the US.

With Florida’s cruise ports at full capacity, and those in Texas and Louisiana rapidly approaching such status, he predicted that “somebody in the Caribbean will be the first” to achieve permanent home port status with the cruise lines.

And, with both Royal Caribbean and Crystal Cruises set to home port in The Bahamas this summer, Mr Benford said the outcome will determine if such operations “can be viable long-term for The Bahamas”. He added that the proposed Grand Lucayan acquisition, together with its Coco Cay private island and Nassau, would enable Royal Caribbean to offer seven-day cruises solely within The Bahamas.

The Royal Caribbean executive revealed that the cruise line spent $70m during the COVID-19 lockdown upgrading its Perfect Day experience at Coco Cay in the Berry Islands, and estimated that by 2030 - with the Grand Lucayan, Paradise Island and the Grand Bahama Shipyard included - it will have invested around $1bn in this nation.

“As we look at growing that passenger number from 2m to 6m, the cruise industry itself will probably double the number of ships in the next decade and run out of existing home port space,” Mr Benford explained. With Florida home ports “at capacity”, and Texas heading in the same direction, the cruise industry “is going to look at home porting operations in the Caribbean for the next decade”.

This, he added, was why Royal Caribbean’s summer home porting in Nassau, which is scheduled to begin in ten days’ time via the Adventure of the Seas, represents “a really good trial to see if home porting operations can be viable long-term from The Bahamas”.

“If any Caribbean country has an opportunity to start up long-term home porting operations, The Bahamas is going to be very competitive with that,” Mr Benford told Tribune Business. “I think somebody in this region, the Caribbean, will be the first to have a permanent home port ship.”

He added that The Bahamas’ had all the ingredients necessary to be a successful home port, the key attributes being its airlift connectivity and proximity to the US as well as sufficient hotel room capacity to accommodate cruise passengers who elected to spend several nights in this nation both before and after their cruise.

Mr Benford, who said the $250m infrastructure upgrades at Prince George Wharf will also serve The Bahamas well in competing to become a permanent home port destination, said: “I think it all adds up to opportunity with respect to home porting. The two most important things are airlift, and you have a great state-of-the-art airport with affordable airlift from the US, and multiple hotel properties with capacity.

“Add in the brand new infrastructure at the port, and The Bahamas is doing everything it can to position itself to be incredibly competitive in the cruise sphere.”

With The Bahamas set to become increasingly important to Royal Caribbean, Mr Benford disclosed: “I think you’ll see our volumes.... we’re expecting to bring over 6m guests from the Royal Caribbean group to The Bahamas by 2030 or in the next ten years.

“We’re looking at tripling from the present 2m over a ten-year period, and tripling the number of people means tripling the spend. That will increase spending in The Bahamas by $1bn over 10 years; revenue for Bahamian companies.

“That’s not a $1bn increase in revenue for the Royal Caribbean group; that’s money that stays in The Bahamas. Those are the tours and people going to dinner and buying things and shopping. That’s the economic opportunity that’s there. The question is how do we maximise it, keep as much as possible, and connect real people and businesses to this. It takes a lot of work and we have to spend a lot of time collaborating.”

Mr Benford acknowledged concerns among Bahamian businesses reliant on cruise ship passengers that they were only retaining a small portion of the industry’s economic impact, adding: “The real hard work is sitting around the table figuring out solutions. Everyone can identify the problem, but we need to sit around the table and figure out how to collaborate and get a better outcome for everybody.”

The Royal Caribbean executive added that “at least for the first month” Adventure of the Seas’ Nassau home port voyages “if not sold out are very close to it”. He added that the 3,800-passenger vessel will be “a little less than 50 percent capacity” for its first sailings to ensure COVID-19 related safety measures are adhered to.

The cruise line has already obtained Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) permission to resume trial sailing from Florida later this month, and Mr Benford confirmed that paid-for cruises have already received the go-ahead for July 2021.