By Fernando Davis

With several Caribbean islands, including Jamaica, set for a cruise shipping renaissance of sorts via home-porting arrangements over the coming months, local stakeholders say the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

They argue that, from a safety standpoint, Jamaica, through its resilient corridors and other COVID-19 health related guidelines, has been meticulously preparing for this moment… ever since the closure of all five cruise ports over a year ago… and in anticipation of the arrival of a Norwegian Cruise Line vessel in Montego Bay, St James in August.

Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett, in pointing to Jamaica’s critically acclaimed COVID-19 response on the world stage, said it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the island has been chosen as a home-port destination by one of the major cruise lines.

He added that the island has been a pioneer in tourism resilience and sustainability with commendable work being done by the Tourism Linkages Network as well as the Global Tourism Resilience Crisis and Management Centre (GTRCMC), which focuses solely on the constant development of resilience strategies.

“As you know, we have finalised arrangements with the Norwegian Cruise Line to homeport one of their Breakaway Class ships in Montego Bay, with service set to begin in August,” Bartlett said.

“I also want to assure that we are also putting protocols in place that will ensure that it will not only be a lucrative endeavour but one that is safe and seamless too.”

And in noting that while the vessel will be operating at 50 per cent of its regular 3,800 carrying capacity, the tourism minister said passengers will have to be fully vaccinated before being allowed to embark the ship.

Bartlett, in the meantime, added that while the current arrangement has been finalised with Norwegian Cruise Line, there are still ongoing discussions with other cruise entities for other home-porting opportunities.

But what exactly is home-porting?

“Home-porting is when a ship uses a port or marine terminal as its home, regardless of its port of registry,” explains duty free merchant and senior director of Royal Shop Ravi Daswani.

“This allows passengers to begin or terminate a cruise in the home-port…which in this case would be Montego Bay. The logistics also will have to be perfect such as proximity to an airport, tours, ground transportation and hotel accommodation. Passengers may also fly into the island to board vessels. Jamaicans booking cruises on home-ported ships will also have the advantage of boarding here as opposed to flying to another location to do so.”

Daswani further noted that home-porting will generate more airlifts into destination Montego Bay while bringing additional businesses for local service providers such as restaurants, tour operators, taxis, car rental companies, craft traders and many other small and medium-sized operators.

For his part, Dr Lee Bailey, chief executive officer (CEO) of Caribbean Cruise Shipping and Tours Limited, says Jamaica’s telling advantage in having the most cruise ports in the English-speaking Caribbean makes it a front runner for any home-porting arrangement.

Bailey, who is also a director of the Jamaica Cruise Council, said it is also his fervent wish that the country upped the ante while having discussions with cruise officials by offering the concept of “multi-porting” where vessels could move from one Jamaican port to the other.

“We have to look at our innovations and new ideas because findings from research conducted (by me and others) is that we could maximise the use of our port facilities if current cruise calls to Jamaica could be doubled or tripled meaning you call at several ports before leaving Jamaica. If that could be introduced to the cruise lines that would cause other benefits to communities in a single call from a single cruise ship,” Bailey further added.

“I agree with the minister of tourism when he says we need to look at the supply chain on how long before the industry rebounds. I am quite sure the cruise lines will work out a way of handling the distancing onboard; if they are doing those things and spending a lot of money we must match those efforts.”

A 2017-18 study indicated that the total cruise tourism expenditure for Jamaica was US$244.53 million, generating total employment of 8,293 and total wage income US$56.57 million. In 2019 the region received an estimated 28,941,888 cruise visitors, an increase of 3.5 per cent when compared to the same period in 2018.

In recent years, Jamaica, with vessels such as Mein Schiff and Aida from out of Germany, has been engaged in home-porting arrangements with a number of ships being accommodated at the Montego Bay port