Downtown Tauranga is seeking ideas from members for events, activities, highlights and offerings for passengers travelling on the first overnight cruise ship of the season.
The Celebrity Solstice arrives in Mount Maunganui from Akaroa at 7.15am on Monday, November 21 and departs for Auckland at 8.30pm the following day.
It's one of a number of overnight cruise ship stop-overs secured by Tourism Bay of Plenty for the first time this cruise ship season.
But the ship will not be taking on new passengers at Tauranga, says ISS Mckay Shipping's cruise agent Richard Carvalho.
'They prefer to stay there two days because there is so much to do, to give the passengers a chance to go up to Rotorua.”
There's no advance notice of how many of the 314m ship's 2800 passengers and 1500 crew will be choosing to go ashore for the evening – or across the harbor to Tauranga. It is a Monday, when many restaurants are normally closed.
'To entice passengers into the city centre we will need to profile a range of offerings,” says Downtown Tauranga's memo to members.
'With this in mind, do you have an event, offering or special offer that you would like us to promote as a ‘Crew Deal' or ‘City Highlight' that we will then ask Tourism BoP to promote to the cruise ship for that evening?”
Ideas are wanted by October 31 so a communication can be compiled for dispatch to the ship.
Because November 21 is a Monday and the traditional day of rest for the hospitality industry, the Mount Mainstreet is awaiting the Celebrity Solstice's second overnight stay on Saturday December 10.
'We are going to invite the general public to come and have a night out on Mount Mainstreet on December 10,” says Mainstreet manager Ingrid Fleming.
'When we do something we want to do it well, and the Monday night is not that conducive.”
The Little Big Markets will be on and there will be some bars and restaurants open in the Mainstreet area, and visitors will still be able to walk around the Mount.
11 comments
Are you serious?
Posted on 28-10-2016 09:13 | By Tamati TK
Getting ideas at this late stage, doing Tourism Bay of Plentys job and then despite them knowing about these overnight stays for months the ideas are wanted by 31 Oct in just over 48hrs.
The Strand
Posted on 28-10-2016 09:35 | By hapukafin
Close of the Strand to traffic to start with.Allow any appropiate tourist orientated stalls and entertainment to setup for a moderate fee and use it on free buses.Have a Kiwi,Bali or Latin atmosphere theme.
Free
Posted on 28-10-2016 10:08 | By Accountable
Run a number of free shuttles for the passengers and crew. Fancy That, a gift and souvenir shop in the city center, proved it work well for the whole CBD. Charging $10.00 a head to come over is a big disincentive as proven by the lack of passengers seen in the CBD in the last four or so years.
What!!!!
Posted on 28-10-2016 12:28 | By philiphallen
Close the cargo shed and start digging up the CBD waterfront at the very start of the season. Now they ask for ideas to entice visitors. Give em all a shovel and maybe the work will be finished sooner.
Cargo shed
Posted on 28-10-2016 13:33 | By hapukafin
Always take my visitors to the Cargo Shed and always get a good response from them even if they had not bought something.Some of the carvings are hanging around with the Inuits of Kuujjuaq.
you said it right philiphallen!
Posted on 28-10-2016 14:23 | By Rolly
dont forget the start of spring and summer is also the perfect time to perform traffic clogging road works in Mount Maunganui right on top of Labour weekend! And then on the same weekend we had our surf lifesavers begging for donations on the side of the road with nothing more than a bucket and hastily hand written cardboard signs all of which is not a good look. As for the overnight cruise ships it is too little too late. AGAIN compliments of TBOP who have not seemed to have arranged or organised anything, just left it to others to come up with some last minute ideas!
Get Off Their Backsides.
Posted on 28-10-2016 15:35 | By Jitter
If Tourism Bay Of Plenty got off their backsides and actively promoted the BOP perhaps we would see more tourists staying in and around Tauranga rather than going off to other destinations. Another parasite organisation living off the Tauranga ratepayers subsidies.
@jitter
Posted on 28-10-2016 17:24 | By Taffy
Quite correct. Tourism BOP, Downtown Tauranga,Mainstreet Mt Maunganui all tarred with the same brush,couldn,t organise a booze up in a brewery.Here we are just over 3weeks from this overnight event and these clowns now decide to go out to their members for ideas.These schedules for these cruises were no doubt organised atleast 12 months ago.How long ago did Tourism BOP know about these timetables?The cruise ship schedule for the season was in the paper weeks ago Why the panic now?Some person or persons needs to be held accountable so come Mr Mayor and your new council start as you mean to go on and earn your money .Here,s a suggestion get locals to take one or two passengers home and show them what real kiwis can do instead of b.s. they get fed at present.
Can't help but agree.....
Posted on 28-10-2016 23:36 | By groutby
....only a short while to go and people paid (are they really?) to know the answers and perhaps and hopefully get some motivation into the area and give our tourists every reason to stay for awhile in our district. Quote: "they (tourists) prefer to stay for two days to give the passengers time to go "up" to Rotorua"....with the country's only real answer to the Gold Coast on our doorstep, we are still asking the same (stupid) questions year after year???.. get real guys, if this organisation is being paid, why?..and if they aren't, should we engage the services of a professional organisation who can promote our magnificent area?...why go thru this knowing what's going to happen, year after year after.....
The joke is on the ratepayers and members!
Posted on 29-10-2016 11:36 | By Bobby2
I thought that Downtown Tauranga would have been wound up years ago. Yet another organisation funded by members? What offerings do they expect the member retailers, banks, restaurants and other businesses to come up with maybe all the two dollar shops could offer a further must experience discount with a cheap coffee and sausage sizzle together with banks free banking transactions for cruise passengers! Get real and wake up these are international travellers not a group of visiting uni students! Rotorua must be laughing all the way to the bank. TBOP and their collaborative marketing chant is a very old, very tired, and very costly joke which is of no help to tourism in Tauranga.
Tourism BOP?
Posted on 29-10-2016 13:26 | By Crash test dummies
So a few days before arrival they are asking for ideas on activities in the city to keep the arrivals happy and entertained. These ships plan often years ahead of the dates and times of arrival. This very much illustrates that TBOP is indeed a waste of time and space and money, that they even exist.
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