After a year without cruise tourists, some ports are questioning if they want them to ever return

[TexasTowelie]

Cruises are still months away from resuming, but once they do, things will be very different. Those differences will be found beyond the full-service buffets and improved air sanitation onboard; in fact, many ports are questioning if they want to return to the pre-pandemic way things were.

As ships grow larger and cruising becomes more popular, cruise ports the world over have struggled with overtourism. Even prior to the pandemic, destinations like Venice, Barcelona and Boracay moved to lower the number of cruise passengers stopping at their ports.

The trend has rapidly spread since the pandemic all but shut down tourism in most places.

Speaking at an event announcing an expansion of the Aster Cayman medical city, Cayman Islands Premier Alden McLaughlin explained that the nation was trying to move beyond its reliance upon the cruise industry. “We’re trying to diversify the whole tourism industry. What I foresee, certainly if we [the People's Progressive Movement party] retain [control of] the government, is less focus on growing cruise tourism. I think we have a very clear signal from just about every source that the great numbers that we’ve had since the cruise industry began in earnest and have always been the objective.”

Read more: https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2021/03/03/after-a-year-of-without-cruise-tourists-some-ports-are-questioning-if-they-want-them-to-ever-return

[samnsara]

1. i love cruising..altho ive only done it twice and to the same place but the whole thing

..is so cool. I cant wait to do it again.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. I'm okay with that.

The saddest thing ever is those Venice boats that are loaded with camera carrying tourists. It takes away from the romance that those boats should represent.

[DinahMoeHum]

3. Hey, that's OK by me. . .

Last edited Fri Mar 5, 2021, 02:34 PM - Edit history (1)

. . .because I've only done cruises where the number of personnel (crew and passengers) total 100 or less. These smaller vessels go places where the big ones (aka "foo-foo ships&quot don't, they stay in ports for days, not hours, and the crews are hired locally.

Oh, and it's a big relief for Key West to not have those monstrosities around, either.

[Kali]

4. I do not get the appeal of most of these

if I was into staying at a crowded resort with other tourists why get on a boat? I prefer to go places on my own or with a few friends. don't like crowds, don't like regimented schedules. ugh

and can you imagine having to make a living at the shore stops from the masses of passengers who probably don't want to pay much for anything and have no room to store what they might buy?

tourism is a shitty unsustainable way to make a living. I hate when it gets promoted as THE solution to economic or ecological problems.