Today’s tourism providers need quality infrastructure more than ever. In a world where tourists can not only book accommodation online but plan their journey from door-to-door right down to the minute, a 5-star hotel can still lose a guest if travel on the ground from a port or airplane to the lobby is much harder compared to another destination on offer.
Recent years have seen Saint Lucia’s construction sector hard at work upgrading infrastructure, seeking to ensure the nation’s tourists enjoy an easy and speedy experience getting from A to B. As well as upgrades to Port Castries’ Pointe Seraphine Berth One that opened in January 2018, recent months have seen the Chastanet government actively driving forward plans for the construction of a cruise ship port in Vieux Fort. This will complement the redevelopment of the Hewanorra International Airport which will be a key part of future port plans. Let’s review the state of Saint Lucia now, and the government’s plans for the future.
Why the Urgency Behind Infrastructure Upgrades?
While the benefits of some upgrades are obvious to the eye, a casual observer might ask what major advantages will come with the upgrade of a port. After all, many of the world’s busiest airports deal daily with massive congestion, yet still function (though often ineffectively, to many travellers’ minds). In turn, while technology may progress, fundamentally, cruise ships still dock the same way they did 100 years ago.
There was a time when many tourists would travel ready to rough it: an uncomfortable airplane seat, a ferry across choppy seas, and a recognition that seeing the world would often involve a tough walk down a rarely travelled path. Today it’s different. The old way of travelling hasn’t outright disappeared — with some providers doing a strong trade in ‘adventure tourism’ — but fierce competition for the tourism dollar locally and globally has seen tourism operators shift decisively to providing a premium and seamless experience from start to finish.
This has meant that not only have tourism providers taken their business to a new level, but governments have been required to boost infrastructure too. Failing to do so grows the risk that cruise lines will downgrade (or even delist) a port on a travel itinerary. By the same measure, upgrading not only helps secure existing business into the future, but offers a platform to entice new business from further afield.
From Port to Port
The US state of Florida plays host to the three busiest cruise ports in the world with Miami, Port Canaveral and Port Everglades collectively hosting a whopping 12.5 million visitors per year. It’s easy to identify here the benefits of infrastructure upgrades locally, with the majority of cruises departing Florida destined to visit the Caribbean.
As well as the importance of the Florida market, the rapid growth of Texas’ economy is helping drive the Port of Galveston to a new prominence in the regional cruise circuit, today hosting around 1.7 million visitors a year, with flow-on effects to the Caribbean. Regionally, the Port of Nassau in the Bahamas, the Port of Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands, and Port St. Maarten (alongside the territory of the US Virgin Islands) make up the leaders in the Caribbean field.
Saint Lucia may trail other regional nations, hosting 669,217 cruise passenger arrivals in 2017 compared to Grand Cayman’s 1,711,565 passengers, but the enduring problems the latter island has faced — with up to five cruise ships in port at once, giving rise to the risk of logjam and lines throughout — shows a ‘build it and they will come’ approach will not suffice if the queue is too long on arrival! And there can be no doubt of the perspective of cruise providers in this space.
On Cruise Control
The cruise line of the future will see significant change. Not only is the passenger capacity of many cruise liners set to increase, but also the size of their ships. This is why Royal Caribbean International (RCI) has already added its voice in calling for the development of more modern and serviceable port infrastructure globally. It is here that Saint Lucia can carve out a unique advantage — not only given its recent upgrades in Port Castries, but now its new plans for a cruise ship port in Vieux Fort. Were it brought into being, it would offer tourists a truly enviable connection, with Hewanorra International Airport just a five-minute drive away.
The government has been in discussions with key stakeholders, including Carnival Cruises. Though it remains early days, the proximity of not only Hewanorra but the Pearl of the Caribbean racetrack means a new port here would represent another strong step in the revitalisation of Saint Lucia’s south, the three representing a new trinity of key infrastructure, and all sharing a push for new tourists.
An Anchor for the Future
Saint Lucia’s investments in its infrastructure will not only reap benefits in the short term, but continue to attract new growth over a longer duration, especially as other regional nations (for whatever reasons) ultimately may delay and forestall necessary upgrades of their own. Put simply, Saint Lucia has invested in order to acquire a lead over its competition; the task now is to hold on to it. With 2017 and 2018 having delivered record growth in the number of tourism arrivals, and with the planned upgrade of Hewanorra International Airport driving new interest in Saint Lucia as a destination globally, the progression of the port in Vieux Fort would be an ideal addition.
A strategic consideration for the government and the business community will be to ensure that the growth in the south complements that in Castries. By no means should it be expected that one will automatically detract from the other. Instead, fostering common links between the existing cruise port in Castries and the expected addition in Vieux Fort will be essential to maximising domestic travel that visiting tourists make, and also to selling most effectively Brand Saint Lucia’s new strengths in tourism infrastructure, going into the decade ahead.
