Cruising News Magazine Cruising News June 2018 | Page 5

Australian Demand for Cruising Continues
Transport and Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey, President of Carnival
Australia and P&O Cruises Australia, Sture Myrmell, PBPL Chief Executive
Officer Roy Cummins and local member Joan Pease.
New Cruise Terminal Is Now Full Steam Ahead
A new international cruise terminal will be operating in Brisbane
within two years after Port of Brisbane and Carnival Australia
announced they had reached a commercial agreement. The
Brisbane International Cruise Terminal (BICT) at Luggage Point
will be operating by mid-2020 and is expected to generate
almost $5 billion in economic value for the Queensland
economy alone within 15 years.
The amended commercial agreement between Port of
Brisbane Pty Ltd (PBPL) and Carnival Australia follows the
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC)
conditional approval of the project in May 2018. Both PBPL
and Carnival Australia had been considering the commercial
implications of the ACCC’s conditions and have agreed a way
forward in the best interests of the cruise industry, Queensland
tourism and the state’s economy.
“The decision means Port of Brisbane will now get on with
the job of building the terminal, which is a key plank of
Queensland’s tourism growth story,” PBPL Chief Executive
Officer Roy Cummins said. “The agreement with Carnival
Australia gives us commercial certainty to construct the BICT,
and we thank them for their ongoing support. This is also good
news for the cruise industry as a whole, which will benefit
from access to a world-class terminal facility. Cementing this
partnership means we can avoid delays and maintain our
construction timeline which – weather permitting – targets
completion in second quarter 2020.”
President of Carnival Australia and P&O Cruises Australia, Sture
Myrmell, said the new terminal was a ‘win-win’ for cruising as
well as the Queensland economy. “It means Brisbane can take
its place on the world cruising map for some of the globe’s
most iconic cruise lines with ships too large to use existing
facilities at Portside,” Mr Myrmell said. “The terminal will be
a major piece of national infrastructure and the single most
important investment in cruise tourism in Queensland in 12
years.”
Transport and Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey said the
announcement was welcome news for industry across
Queensland. “The Brisbane International Cruise Terminal
will support an average of 245 jobs a year over its two-year
construction period, and adds 49 operational jobs on average
each year over the next 20 years. This project safeguards
Brisbane’s role as an important cruise ship port, ensuring we
keep the existing 1,250 jobs related to the industry in Brisbane.”
he said.
Carnival Australia has entered into a long-term agreement
with Port of Brisbane Pty Ltd committing to purchase a
maximum of 100 ‘foundation’ berthing days of no more than
four in any week for 15 years to underwrite the construction
of the new terminal at Luggage Point. In exchange, Carnival
Australia receives priority berthing rights at the terminal.
Carnival Australia’s arrangements remain subject to approval
by the Foreign Investment Review Board.
More Australians than ever are taking to the seas for a holiday,
with Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) Australasia
revealing that in 2017 the Australian cruise market grew by
4.4 per cent, equating to almost 6 per cent of the Australian
population taking a cruise last year.
With more than 1.34 million Australians taking an ocean cruise in
2017, CLIA Australasia Managing Director Joel Katz said cruising
had now become the quintessential modern Australian holiday.
According to the industry body’s annual ocean passenger
Cruise Industry Source Market Report, Australia remains the
only market in the world to surpass a 4 per cent population
penetration rate, well ahead of more mature markets.
Mr Katz said that while the growth wasn’t as dramatic as recent
years, it was more than two and a half times higher than the
rate of Australia’s inbound holiday arrivals growth rate of 1.7%.
“This growth rate puts Australia on par with the world’s largest
cruise market, the USA, which experienced growth of 4.7 per
cent, and was well ahead of more established cruise markets
such as Europe (up 2.5 per cent), and the UK and Ireland (up 0.5
per cent). With demand for cruising as high as ever, there is still
so much potential. The best way to future-proof cruise tourism
in Australia is to resolve infrastructure constraints and ensure
the right regulatory settings to allow more cruising to Australian
ports. As long as we can solve the lack of cruise infrastructure
development in Sydney and across the region, we’ll see further
increases in passenger numbers,” Mr Katz said. “As cruise
continues to grow in popularity, more cruise lines will base
more ships down under and the number of homeports and
itineraries will only grow. With the equivalent of almost 1 in every
18 Australians cruising last year, Australians are overwhelmingly
choosing a cruise as their holiday of choice and they’re coming
back time and time again”.
The report also revealed that Australians still spend most of
their time cruising local waters with the South Pacific (35 per
cent) and Australia (34 per cent) accounting for the most
cruise passengers. Mr Katz said one of the great success stories
of the booming cruise industry was seeing valuable cruise
dollars spread right around Australia’s vast coastline. “With
about one third of Australian cruise passengers embarking on
an Australian itinerary in 2017, regional economies continued
to reap the benefits of cruise tourism. As long as infrastructure
and regulatory policy allows, we will increasingly see vessels
homeporting outside of Sydney in cities including Brisbane,
Melbourne, Fremantle and Adelaide, and visiting regional ports
such as Broome, Eden, Geraldton and Gladstone, to cater to
this demand,” Mr Katz said.
“Australia needs to develop appropriate infrastructure and
policy to ensure the growth potential here is fully realised. With
the popularity of cruising booming in Asia, and specifically in
China, and regional Asian governments developing berthing
facilities for the cruise market, Australia cannot afford to be left
behind,” Mr Katz noted.
Other key findings of the 2017 Ocean Passenger Cruise Industry
Source Market Report include:
• Australasia accounted for 5.4 per cent of global cruise
passenger numbers and as a region with a comparatively
small population, is punching well above its weight in the
cruise stakes.
• Asia remained the most popular long-haul fly-cruise
destination for Australian cruisers accounting for 7.3 per cent
of travellers, followed by the Mediterranean (4.6 per cent)
and Alaska (2.8 per cent).
• The youngest average age demographic for Australian
cruisers (44 years-old) was found on South Pacific and
Caribbean cruises, while the oldest average age (67 years-
old) was found on longer expedition itineraries.
• Global statistics showed that Australasia was an attractive
cruise destination for international visitors with around 200,000
people travelling to the region for a cruise holiday, mostly
from the USA (87,000), and the Unite d Kingdom (21,000).
Globally there are 109 new cruise ships set to be delivered
between 2018 - 2027.
www.worldwidecruisecentres.com.au
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