Are the foreign cruise ships calling at Mount Maunganui the cash cows they're painted to be? Are they delivering to the Bay of Plenty on all the multi-million dollar projections bandied around by industry fathers?

When the Sea Princess slipped into town on October 18, Tourism Bay of Plenty trumpeted the beginning of a $45-$50 million seasonal injection into the local economy.

A game of numbers – Shore Trips and Tours managing director Ian Holroyd. Photo by Tracy Hardy.

Tourism BOP general manager Rhys Arrowsmith says he feels 'very comfortable” with those numbers from Cruise NZ

'More like $20-million,” says a sceptical Ian Holroyd, managing director of Shore Trips and Tours.

He also points to anomalies in passenger figures. There's been speculation in the media of up to 240,000 passengers arriving here this season.

However, the industry is considerably more conservative at 205,000 visitors.

'It's the fastest-growing tourism sector alright, but from my calculations of each ship's passenger and crew capacity, they'll deliver half to two-thirds of official economic projections,” says Ian.

'They are not the golden apple.”

He blames spare capacity, discounted fares out of Australia and budget-conscious Aussies.

'They have a different economic status to rich Americans and Europeans, who used to come here for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Ian believes for many Aussie passengers it's the cruise itself and relaxing on-board, that's the drawcard – not the destinations. He calculates the average spend ashore would be around $100 a day.

That, he says, explains why less than half of the seats available to passengers aboard the Sea Princess were taken up. 'Our cars were 39 per cent full. That's hardly a goldmine for us or the region.”

But Tourism Bay of Plenty remains upbeat.

Credit card data now available to Cruise NZ indicates the spend is broad – things like port costs, bunkering and maintenance, health care and provisioning as well as tours comes from cruise ships.

Rhys says tour operators will be looking at the economic value from their own slice of the pie, which neglects a huge amount of other spending.

He also points to 'return passengers” – visitors doing a reconnaissance for a more in-depth return visit. They aren't accounted for in the statistics.

And Rhys is advised by Cruise NZ that most passengers take a half-day tour from the port they're in, organised on-board, return to lunch on-board, then go into town to browse and visit attractions.

Tour operator Ian, however, remains unconvinced.

'We are earning half per passenger than what we did 10 years ago,” he says.