Kent Harrington, co-founder of Be Smart Savannah, has a provocative and well-written op-ed in today’s Charleston Post & Courier: Facts steer Savannah away from cruise folly.
Harrington notes a variety of reasons why smaller markets like Savannah should beware of cruise ships. Interestingly, on the day that Savannah ended its flirtation with the cruise industry, Carnival announced that it was pulling ships from Norfolk, Baltimore, and Boston.
From Harrington’s op-ed:
For Charleston, the analysis that led to Savannah’s “no†vote is worth a look. The challenges facing terminals like Charleston’s are growing. In addition to Norfolk, five similar terminals built since 2000 — Philadelphia, Mobile, Houston, San Diego and Honolulu — are either closed or operating deep in the red. It’s not just the cruise corporations’ tactics — their habit of pulling out with little notice as they follow shifts in the market — that should cause worry. Trends in the cruise industry suggest that strategic business risks for such terminals are rising as well.
Cruise corporations are building bigger ships, making those in the 2000-plus passenger range like the Carnival Fantasy a shrinking share of their fleets. Terminals that service older, smaller ships are going to compete for fewer vessels.
Marketing will focus increasingly on cities with mega-ship terminals such as Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Port Everglades. These ports already handle over 70 percent of all East coast cruise passengers; ports with smaller ships in the Southeast — Norfolk, Charleston, Mobile, and Jacksonville — together embark barely 5 percent.
The entire piece is well worth a read, especially a later passage about “the displacement of destination visitors” and damage to “unique historic values.”