THUNDER BAY — The city’s cruise ship season saw a small drop in port calls this year, according to Paul Pepe, manager of Tourism Thunder Bay.
Pepe told Dougall Media there were “13 port visits from four different ships”, including a new company, Victory Cruise Line, docking at the Pool 6 terminal. Three of these visits were also turnarounds from Viking.
“We… had a couple of customs clearing calls on top of all that as well. So, it was a very successful year, and I think we welcomed about 4,800 international visitors to the community through the cruising,” Pepe said.
In comparison, last year, he said, the city saw “15 port calls plus two customs clearings.”
“Every year is a little different. The ships do move around. They do change up their itineraries, but certainly the cruise lines were very happy with Thunder Bay,” Pepe said.
Due to the small drop in cruise ship visits, Pepe said the economic impact on the city will be “shy of what we had last year.”
“Economically, it has a pretty big impact on the city. Last year, I think we were about $4.5 million in total economic impact. This year looks like we’re going to be about $3.5 million,” he said.
Pepe explained that those tourist dollars impact the local economy in a pretty substantial way.
“They’re chartering motor coaches, they’re hiring guides for the turnarounds. Those are guests that are flying in and out of the city, and that’s airfares that are paid to regional airlines that are supporting the route into Thunder Bay. Some of those guests are staying in hotels while they’re here. They’re renting cars on their own and exploring,” Pepe said.
“Then there’s the vessel supply side. The vessels are taking on food here. They’re taking off waste. They’re buying and procuring supplies that they need on board the ship here locally in a lot of cases.”
He also added that hotel occupancy to the end of July was 87 per cent as “people were trading their traditional U.S. travel for Canada — Canadians were exploring Canada.”
However, the American market was down about 9 per cent, Pepe said.
“We saw a shift in the American clientele. What we did see this year (was) a lot of Americans were road tripping. A lot of Americans were coming up and exploring different things and so it was still a fairly strong year for the American market,” he said.
As for next year, Pepe said the city can expect to see 11 cruise ships making port, mostly from Victory Cruise Line.
“So, the same four ships that we had this year. Certainly, we’re in communication with a number of other small cruise lines that are interested in coming into the Great Lakes as well. We do work with a lot of other Canadian and American ports together to build awareness of the Great Lakes. We all work together to pitch the Great Lakes to various cruise lines,” Pepe said.
“I think with the popularity of cruising, small ship cruising in particular, there are a number of small companies around the world that are interested. We’re continuing dialogue and communications with those companies and hopefully we’ll see those in the future.”
