The Benefit Of Cruise Ships Is Greatly Exaggerated

The date had been pencilled into diaries for months. 17 October was to be the day when six cruise ships arrived in Palma on the same day. In the end, there were five, as one cancelled, but five ships on an October day is some going. On only one occasion this summer have the same number of ships docked in Palma on one day (15 September), but to have so many in October is unusual.

It sounds as though this should be something to celebrate. In a way, it is. But the five ships with over 8,000 passengers in total were something of a letdown. No, more than just something of a letdown. Local businesses complained that they didn't do much business.

Perhaps someone should have warned the local businesses not to get too excited. Perhaps the local businesses should have realised. October is not high season. Not being high season means greater economy class (greater than usual). Greater economy class means spending less (less than usual).

There is an enormous amount of misinformation spread about cruise ships and their value to the local economy. The simple fact of five ships arriving on one day is taken as an indication of a vibrant cruise economy in Mallorca, when it isn't really anything of the sort. It is good for the port itself, it can be good for excursions operators and their chosen attractions, but it is far less good for everyone else.

It does depend on the type of passenger. Americans are good news, but American ships come only rarely. Italians can be good as they are used to buying gifts to take home (more so than others?), but spending on gifts or anything was in limited supply on 17 October. More business can be generated by only two ships being in port. It all depends.

One of the factors is the length of stay. If passengers typically spend no more than three hours before returning to ship - usually for lunch and then to await departure - how much business can really be generated? Very little for bars and restaurants, you would have to think, especially as many cruises operate on all-inclusive lines. So why the anticipation and the excitement? It is more in the hope than in the reality.

And this hope tells its own sorry, pathetic story. There is something mercenary but also patronising about the arrival of a cruise ship. There is a sense of fighting for scraps from a lofty alien force that appears for a short time, which might condescend to dispense with some scrappy largesse but which then disappears to partake of the on-ship buffet, leaving local business owners staring forlornly at the great hulks and weeping because of their misfortune.

Many years ago, I was on the island of Mykonos. A ship with American tourists (one that wasn't a military ship, as the American military was an altogether different type of tourist) came in one day. The jostling and fighting at the harbour side was a sad sight but it was one I had experienced on arrival, despite being a mere teenage backpacker. Economies are more advanced now, expectations are different, but it is similar when the cruise ships come into Palma. It's as though beggars anticipate a sudden bonanza. This is what I mean by patronising and mercenary.

There is far too much expectation from cruise ships. Far too much that is unrealistic. Many ships are organised so that passengers are whisked away by coach to an attraction that has paid handsomely in the form of a commission to the ship's operator in order to get the visitors. The stays are very short, the passengers less likely these days to be lined with gold. The ships may be luxury, but the economics of cruising have changed along with the market.

The economic benefits of cruise ships are questionable. There are benefits to the port itself, but cruise ships do not make jobs other than indirectly for a port workforce. They don't even mean sales of local produce, as ship stocking-up has usually been done elsewhere. Yet a city and an island are made to fall at the feet of cruise operators and to bow to the passengers who appear and then disappear in a flash. It is the transience of tourism at its most extreme and at its most unseemly.

Figures will be arrived at. Cruise ships bring x millions. But to whom? As always with such numbers, one has to understand where the spend might go. To the port authority, to specific and limited numbers of attractions, to coach operators, to hotels which accommodate journey-joining or journey-ending passengers. How much goes elsewhere? On 17 October very little it would seem.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Cruise Tourism Myth

By way of a coincidence, a couple of mentions of cruise tourism over the past few days had worked themselves into my consciousness. I referred to one of them yesterday; the other had simply lodged in my memory banks.

The reference I made was to Leo Hickman who has lumped cruise ships in with all-inclusive hotels in branding them one of the worst forms of tourism in that they generate little by way of benefit to local economies. The one I hadn't referred to, but now do, was to Puerto Alcúdia and a question asked by the restaurant association as to why its new commercial port was not receiving cruise ships.

In Alcúdia there was talk of it becoming a port of call. It was one reason why so much was invested in developing the new terminal and in deepening the waters. To date, it has not become a port of call and it may never become so. The restaurant association would wish otherwise, as it would hope to reap the benefits from stopover passengers.

The benefits. Ah yes, the benefits of cruise tourism to local economies. These are the benefits that Palma (though not exclusively Palma) derives from cruise tourism and which the city anticipates more of as the volume of cruise traffic increases.

But, as we are reminded not infrequently, passengers disembark, wallets bulging, ready to spend wildly, only to find shops closed. At least, this is one of the sticks which are used to beat Palma shopowners into opening submission and which is used to criticise an inert local tourism-related industry that spurns the opportunities from cruise tourists.

Alcúdia's restaurants presumably believe that they, along with other local businesses, would enjoy untold riches from passengers taking a bit of shore leave. Would they, though?

One of the most important pieces of research into the economic impact of cruise tourism was undertaken by the Policy Research Corporation on behalf of the European Commission. Based on data from October 2008 to September 2009, it looked at, among other things, expenditure by passengers. Of the top 15 ports in Europe, Palma was ranked sixth with around 53 million euros, a figure that rose to 70 million when crew and ship expenditures were added.

The report calculated specific expenditures dependent upon whether passengers disembarked during a stopover (and not all do) and whether they were joining or leaving the ship. The average spend was, respectively, 60 and 95 euros per passenger (the figure being the same whether joining or leaving).

In themselves, the figures seem healthy enough, but you need to dig down into them to understand what they represent. Mostly all the spend by a passenger joining or leaving a ship is on hotel accommodation; the spend of the passenger who disembarks for the day goes primarily towards an excursion of some sort.

The cruise ship functions in its own way. Because stopovers are short, it organises well in advance, as in booking excursions with a select few attractions/activities for which the cruise ship typically extracts a significant commission; and it is said that this can be as high as 50%, which immediately slashes that expenditure which gets into the local economy.

The ship has its arrangements with hotels, with a handful of chosen excursions and perhaps with certain shops or others, and a commission will operate in almost every instance. The benefit, in other words, tends to be spread very thinly. And where the passenger has some "free" time, what can he actually contribute over and above what has pretty much been pre-determined? P&O, for example, lists Pollensa and Formentor as one of its nine shore excursions. In Pollensa there are 30 minutes "to do as you choose ... it is the perfect place to have a morning coffee".

And so that's about it. A coffee. Very little, and the restaurants of Alcúdia might bear this in mind, is actually spent on food. It's the same issue as with all-inclusives, as the passenger has generally already paid for his food on the ship. At most he might buy a small snack and the odd drink while on shore, and that's it.

There is plenty more that could be said about cruise ships and cruise tourism; about the environmental damage caused by ships, and which is greatly understated, or about the fact that little or no direct employment is generated. A benefit does come from cruises, but it is not as great as might be thought, a point made by Professor Paul Wilkinson of Canada's York University, and a leading researcher into cruise tourism, who has said that "cruise visitors have little potential economic impact".


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Tourismophobia

In research into Mallorca's tourism, no one finding has struck me more powerfully than that from the early '90s which suggested that some 10% of the island's tourism amounted to a net loss. It cost more to accommodate this very low-spend category of tourist than was gained. The cost was an approximation of resources etc. that were required to support it, but if one accepts the finding and that this 10% is now likely to be greater, then are there grounds also for accepting that such non-contribution promotes the existence of "tourismophobia", a hatred of tourism and of tourists?

A socio-ethical dimension inherent to all forms of tourism has been made more evident by all-inclusive tourism. Tour operators blather on about sustainable tourism and disingenuously refer to the sourcing of local produce and provision of local employment that all-inclusives offer (as though other types of hotel don't) but never confront the ethics of what is, for the most part, low-rent tourism and, even where it is higher worth, is a form of foreign occupation that avails itself of a destination while at the same time thumbing its nose at the destination.

The ethics of tourism have long been debated; the economic advantages always outweighing other considerations. However, when a destination becomes like a social-services repository for people transported in with little or no intention of adding to the general economic welfare of a destination, over and above the relatively small welfare created by their package holiday, the ethics debate takes a different turn.

Resources, be they human (and not always well paid), be they natural (the sun, the sea, the water, the environment in general) or be they artificial are drawn upon in satisfying the new mass of tourism, housed in ghettoes, divorced from the local communities and contributing comparatively little to them. The debate, from the point of view of a native of the destination, becomes a question: we give you all this, and what do you give us in return?

Tourism has operated under a system of reciprocity. It is one under which a destination opens its doors, accepts there will be changes if not damage to the environment, culture and way of life, but expects some compensation. Where an equilibrium has existed, as it has (or did) in many of Mallorca's resorts, then any underlying social tensions caused by tourism have been minimal.

The balance has altered, though. More difficult economic times have exacerbated the shifts caused by a market change (that of all-inclusive). They have fuelled a growth in a social phenomenon that is being covered by the Spanish tourism press and which is being taken increasingly seriously - that of "turismofobia".

To the economic argument, one can add a political and an idealistic element. In Mallorca, it is one of a small but vociferous group within mainly the younger generation who adhere to what might be styled Catalano-Luddism, essentially a turning back of the clock to a pre-tourism age and a rejection of a Spanish (Francoist) development, that of mass tourism, which was foisted onto Mallorca in the sixties.

If one ever takes a look at internet comments appended to Spanish press articles about the excesses of tourists in Mallorca, one gets a flavour of some of this phobia. It isn't just that people decry drunkenness, violence or diving from hotel balconies; comments are replete with references to a lack of respect, be it for the environment, the culture or whatever.

"Hosteltur", the Spanish tourism magazine and website, has been tracking this phenomenon for some time. At the end of last year it published a report which, while noting that this phobia was very much one held by a minority, revealed efforts designed to combat its growth. It looked at how in the Canary Islands a "social divorce" in respect of tourism had occurred and at how, in Tenerife in particular, efforts have been made to involve local people in tourism and its promotion and in communicating the benefits of tourism. In Barcelona, a major campaign has been waging to combat negative attitudes.

In Mallorca and the Balearics, however, nothing similar has been attempted, save for a forgotten and ill-funded campaign five years ago which featured a song (yes, seriously, a song) for tourism. No one can remember it. There is an acceptance, though, that the message has to be put across that tourism equates with prosperity.

The problem is, however, and as a consequence of market changes, that tourism is perceived as bringing prosperity to ever fewer numbers. "Tourismophobia" may be a minority social phenomenon, but don't count against it becoming more widespread.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.