Caribbean destinations urged to move away from levying cruise ship passengers

Executive Vice President of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) Sue Springer urged regional cruise destinations "to move away" from imposing a controversial head tax on cruise ship passengers. At the moment the charges vary significantly in each destination, ranging from US $2 to US $65, as is the case in Bermuda.

Cruise liners have been opposed to the levy, which is used by countries as a means of earning revenue from cruise ships. Springer is recommending that as an alternative to the tax, Caribbean cruise officials should work with the cruise liners to develop a regional marketing strategy.

"And I believe that is the way forward rather than trying to get a competitive head tax all the way across the board because when you have a disparity of US $2 to US $65 it would be very difficult to get it to one figure," she said.

Springer was among tourism officials who welcomed the Queen Mary II, the world´s largest cruise ship to the island on Thursday; a visit which she says was quite significant for the island´s tourism sector.

Meanwhile, Springer is reporting a significant increase in cruise visitor arrivals for 2003, and is projecting at least 800, 000 visitors this year.

Last year the country attracted 615,000 visitors and just over 500,000 in 2002.

According to Springer, the tourism officials now need to ensure that the product offered to stay-over visitors is of the same standard as that being sold to cruise ship passengers.

She is also advising that they increase efforts towards cruise conversion.

"If you have over eight hundred thousand visitors here and we are able to convert one percent of that into long stay visitors then we have done extremely well," she said.

Overall, Springer said at the moment, hotels were recording an average of 75-percent occupancy.