The cruise ship Sea Princess' expected arrival tomorrow marks the start of another cruise ship season, bringing an estimated 240,000 passengers and crew, and between $45-$50 million dollars into the region.
Sea Princess was originally scheduled to arrive two weeks ago, but was undergoing repairs in Sydney. The delay also gave local tour operators an opportunity to sort out parking issues with Tauranga City Council.
Simon Beaton from the Tauranga Cruise Tourism Operators Association Incorporated alerted the city council to issues in early September, accusing the council funded Tourism BOP of illegally charging tour operators 15 per cent on each job, for no service or benefit.
A hastily arranged meeting between the operators, the council transport department, tourism BOP, councillors and two Tourism BOP board members revealed illegalities all round, says Simon.
Tour operators used to deal directly with customers before driving away from the Salisbury Avenue, Mount Ocean Sports Club carpark area.
The issue with Tourism BOP was over it taxing the operators 15 per cent on every commission, when it did nothing for them.
A closer look at the situation revealed the council's revamped parking bylaw rendered all their commercial transactions illegal. Nobody can sell anything, unless it's from a shop.
The solution, which allows the operators to trade until the bylaw is again revisited, is to operate the commercial transactions in the tourism BOP shed by the port gates – which is on Port of Tauranga land.
So for the privilege of being able to operate at all, operators will pay Tourism BOP 10 per cent on each transaction.
'Next year I imagine we will raise the issue again,” says Simon.
'There's a lot of good will there now. That meeting was good. It started off slightly fractious but by the end of it there was a lot of goodwill. We all started to understand each other's positions better, which was good.”
Simon Beaton suggests parking at the Port is getting worse every year.
Parking, however, remains an urgent issue. There is not going to be enough parking for all the operators this year because a Port of Tauranga safety decision has added to their numbers.
'It's getting worse every year because the cruise ships are getting bigger,” says Simon.
The Sea Princess is scheduled to make 14 visits to the Port of Tauranga this year, with the second on November 1. She's among 84 ships expected between October 2014 and March 2015.
Port of Tauranga is the second highest port of call in New Zealand behind Auckland, says Tourism BOP CEO Rhys Arrowsmith, with recent research showing over 50 per cent of passengers are staying in the Mount Maunganui/Tauranga area and not taking tours elsewhere.
Tauranga is rated 9.1 out of 10 for customer satisfaction, placing it in the top three ranking for Australasian Ports.
2 comments
But business ratepayers are
Posted on 17-10-2014 14:36 | By Annalist
Before tourism operators get precious about paying some commission towards Tourism BOP what about the rates contribution all business ratepayers are forced to contribute towards tourism promotion? It is highly unfair that all businesses pay for tourism through their rates, and then see direct tourism businesses not wanting to pay a cut from their revenue. The precious few carparks at the Mount should be for families, not businesses.
The Reality of Cruise
Posted on 20-10-2014 09:25 | By Ian Holroyd
Having worked in this industry since 2002 I am constantly surprised when the press puts out attention grabbing headlines that are way off the mark. The example above of the passenger/crew numbers and dollar value to the region being a good example. This season we will have 148710 passengers if all beds are filled and approximately 49500 crew, a total of 198280, not the 240,000 stated above. The benefit to the region is way off the mark, passengers are dominated by more budget conscious Australian market, who when compared to the traditional northern hemisphere Americans and Europeans of old do not "spend" like the old days when $200 plus dollar tours were common. Given that many passengers now do almost nothing, perhaps a walk around town, i think means the "average" spend would be nearer $100, making an overall income of 20 million, assuming all passengers/crew spent this amount.
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