Halifax Businesses Prepare For A Second Year Without Cruise Ship Traffic
HALIFAX — For the second year in a row, there’s a very good chance Halifax won’t see any cruise ship traffic.
Lane Farguson, a representative of the Halifax Port Authority, says it’s possible the port might see some cruise ships call on Halifax late in the year. However, the port is moving forward as if none will come.
“We’re preparing for the worst and hoping for the best,” Farguson says.
The cruise industry generates about $170-million in economic activity for Halifax each year, and after Covid-19 obliterated the city’s cruise season in 2020, another year of empty berths has some downtown businesses worried.
‘I was fully considering not opening at all’
Max Rastelli is the owner and operator of Segway Nova Scotia. He says he only got about 10 percent of his usual business last year. Cruise passengers account for a significant number of his customers and he says without them and other tourists he’s not sure his business is viable.
“Just a few short weeks ago I was seriously considering not opening Segway Nova Scotia at all in 2021. I fully expect that we won’t see cruise ships,” Rastelli says.
Rastelli also operates a second business, HFX e-Scooters, which he says hasn’t suffered during the pandemic and has provided him a financial cushion. However, with Segway Nova Scotia, he’s unsure how he will make any profit.
Rastelli says “the only way I can get the numbers to work” is if he can get funding from the government to hire someone. But if that doesn’t happen it seems unlikely he can break even —especially with so many unknowns from the cruise industry.
Sarah Craig, who runs I Heart Bikes, is less concerned about cashing in on cruise tourists.
Like Segway Nova Scotia, I Heart Bikes is located on the waterfront, directly in the path of many cruise passengers who come ashore. Craig says her business doesn’t rely specifically on cruise passengers to survive. Instead, she caters more to locals and other types of tourists. But she does get some extra walk-by traffic from cruise passengers.
She says cruise traffic is still “great” for her business but would like to see government and industry take a closer look at how much the industry actually benefits the province. Cruise ships are fine, she says, but they come with a high environmental cost and cruise passengers might not be spending as much as most people think.
“I’d like to see the cruise ships return in the short term. But in the long term, the government really needs to be ensuring that this is an industry that that benefits everybody,” she says.
When it happens, cruise seasons’ return will look different
Right now, Farguson says, that short-term outlook is still up in the air.
Last year, the Canadian government closed the country’s borders to most international traffic and banned international cruise ships from calling on Canadian ports.
That ban is officially in effect until the end of February, but Farguson says it’s clear to planners at the port that the end of the ban doesn’t mean cruise ships will be back anytime soon.
He says whether and when cruises return depend somewhat on the federal government’s decisions to let the industry back into the country, but even more on how the United States handles its Covid-19 outbreak.
Until things improve south of our border its unlikely Halifax will see any significant cruise activity. And even when that activity does come back, Farguson says cruise tourism will look different.
“For example, we expect to see cruise passengers form sort of a bubble with the vessel,” he explains. That means they would likely only leave the ship to go on tightly-controlled and pre-arranged tours.
“So when cruise [season] does resume initially, we don’t expect that we’ll see people just wandering around on the boardwalk from the ships. It’s going to take time to get back to where it was,” Farguson says.
Despite that, Farguson argues “the fundamentals of tourism across Nova Scotia remains strong” and cruise tourism will come roaring back once the pandemic is finally under control.
“Nova Scotia is a place that people want to visit. And the cruise lines want to come here because people want to visit,” he says. “We remain a safe and welcoming destination with all of the natural beauty and aesthetics that people want to come and see. So once there is the opportunity for the industry to safely resume we are going to continue to work with all of the tourism partners to make sure we’re in the best position to move forward.”
Rastelli agrees but says he’s worried about the impact on local business in the meantime.
“I think in 2021 we’re going to get a real sense of how many businesses have closed—and there’s a lot of small businesses out there. So I think, unfortunately, 2021 is going to show how bad it has been for businesses to get through this, especially the second year,” he says.
Trevor Nichols is a staff writer with Huddle in Halifax. Send him an e-mail with your story suggestions: [email protected].