Boost in cruise shuttle popularity

A fresh and more efficient look at transporting cruise ship passengers to Tauranga's CBD seems to be paying dividends, with numbers 30 per cent up on early-season targets.

After a false start to the 2014/15 cruise ship season due to repairs on the Sea Princess, the first ship arrived on October 17 and since then a further 14 have docked in the Port of Tauranga.


Cruise ships in port. Photo: File.

The next of this season's 84 arrivals is the Pacific Pearl, scheduled for this Saturday morning.

And in the first 10 days of the Cruise Ship City Centre Express Shuttle bus, the service is well ahead of projected targets for the season, proving the new formula is working well.

To date over 1900 passengers have been delivered into the city.

This year Downtown Tauranga are running more buses, more often along with additional ambassadors stationed at both the iPort and the new city centre kiosk on the waterfront.

Mainstreet Tauranga co-ordinator Sally Cooke says it's a model that is already proving more successful, following its inception in 2013.

'While the numbers are still lower than we would like, the trend is good and if we can keep building on the numbers we will have a great season,” says Sally.

'As with last year, and as Tourism Bay of Plenty indicated to us, the beginning of the season is always a little slow.

'So we were never expecting numbers to be huge but at least we have delivered over 1900 tourists into the city.”

Set up last year, the shuttle service to bring cruise ship passengers into Tauranga gavedowntown traders a chance to get a bigger slice of $45-$50 million that cruise ship passengers spend in-port.

The initiative, run in partnership with Bethlehem Coachlines, offers tourists on the cruise ships a direct return trip to the city centre.

'If our numbers continue to grow steadily we hope to achieve in excess of 10,000 tourists into the city centre this cruise ship season, which will be a solid increase on last season's numbers,” adds Sally.

'This initiative is self-funding, so as not to impact on our mainstreet members, so we are very pragmatic in our approach and have the ability to constantly change the model throughout the season to meet demand and maximise tourist numbers. So far, it is working well.”

With data indicating the average cruise ship tourist spends in excess of US$100 a day in an iPort, Downtown Tauranga are hoping to capture their share of this spend into the city centre.

Tourists on the buses receive a city centre brochure and cruise offers from participating businesses, designed to specifically attract the tourists into selected businesses.

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4 comments

So !!!!!!

Posted on 26-11-2014 18:57 | By Accountable

That equates to 135 passengers(4%)transported to the CBD out of an average of 3000 passengers and crew per ship. The CBD needs to find a way to transport them over for free as has been done in the past and with an average of 650 passengers a day or 20,000 passengers per season.There is no logic in charging $10.00 per passenger to the CBD for the eight kilometres when the numbers can be doubled if its a free service. There has never been an event or activity put on by anybody that has delivered 20,000 spending people to the CBD and a free shuttle has proved it can deliver these sorts of results.I think I know a way.Watch this space.


I am with Devon!!!!

Posted on 27-11-2014 05:29 | By Jimmy Ehu

so bloody what..... there is nothing for them to see!!!!, now if the Tauranga C.B.D was promoted as the most boring city on the cruise ship rota, the tourists would at least have something to remember their visit by, the people we have in charge of revitalising our city are so boring they probably get "goosebumps" watching re runs of Shortland Street, if only we could get people with some vision and passion to take control, possibly then we may have a C.B.D that is worth the visit!!!!.


Devon Campbell

Posted on 27-11-2014 08:58 | By How about this view!

The very best of luck, I sincerely hope you make a lot of money. But please don't expect ratepayers to subsidise your income in any way shape or form, as is the case for some around this city.


Here's a way for a

Posted on 27-11-2014 10:00 | By Annalist

If the bus is to be free (if we really believe that tourists paying hundreds of dollars a day are put off by $10 for a bus?) then all the retailers could join together and pay for it. That way the tourist could be dropped off at a central place and left alone to visit the shops they want to.


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