Cruise Economy Ramps Back Up As Halifax’s New Season Kicks Off
HALIFAX—Early in the morning, on April 26, a double line of tour buses idled outside of Pavillion 22 at the Port of Halifax.
Tour guides, dressed in knee-high socks and Nova Scotia tartans, buzzed around chatting with one another and making last-minute preparations. Somewhere inside, bagpipes trilled.
Docked in the harbour, the massive cruise ship the Norwegian Getaway towered over the scene. In a few minutes, a stream of passengers would leave the ship and funnel onto the buses for tours or wander along the waterfront to check out the city.
It would be the first time cruise passengers set foot in Halifax in more than two years.
The Getaway and another ship, the Ocean Navigator, both called on Halifax on April 26, marking the official start of the city’s cruise season.
As the first passengers left the Getaway just after 8:30, port officials and other tourism-industry players were there to greet them with applause. It might have been slightly bewildering to the passengers, but anyone familiar with cruise ships’ economic impact would understand the enthusiasm.
Some of the first passengers out of the Norwegian Getaway were Katrina Stewart and Dave Morgan. Once they were on solid ground, the retired Florida couple stopped to strap on backpacks and situate water bottles ahead of their whirlwind tour of small-town Nova Scotia.
The couple has visited Maine in the past and loved the rocky coast. They heard Nova Scotia was similarly beautiful and were excited to take in the sights—particularly the Peggy’s Cove lighthouse.
“I’ve always wanted to come here,” Stewart said. “I’m thrilled that this is one of our stops.”
The couple will hop on a tour bus to visit a few small towns where they’ll take in the sights, grab a bite to eat and, most importantly, Stewart says, do some shopping.
It’s a typical itinerary for cruise ship passengers—and it’s one that funnels a lot of money into local tourism businesses.
In 2020, before Covid-19 forced the cancellation of the entire cruise season, the Port was planning for 208 cruise ship calls. Those ships would have brought more than 350,000 tourists to Halifax and generated close to $80-million of economic activity.
Direct spending from cruise ship passengers also has spin-off effects on the larger Nova Scotia economy. In 2018, the total economic output from the industry neared $172-million. The industry created jobs 950 jobs, $45.5-million in wages, and generated $14-million in taxes.
That’s why the return of cruise ships is important. Having them back will have significant economic impacts in 2022, even if they’re not quite as big as they were pre-pandemic—at least not yet.
This year, the port is planning for 152 cruise ships calls. That’s only about 80 percent as many as the 2019 cruise season when cruise ships called on the port 179 times.
On top of that, many of those ships are only running at partial capacity.
The Norwegian docked in the harbour on April 26 has a capacity of about 4,000. But, according to Port of Halifax CEO Captain Allan Gray, it was only carrying about 1,500 passengers.
Fewer passengers on every ship mean less economic impact. A stark example of that is the fact that no vendors were set up on April 26 to greet passengers.
Gray says the port isn’t bringing vendors in until the start of July when the cruise season starts to ramp up.
“We held back a little bit [because] this is the pre-season; the real season is August building to September and October. The vendors will do most of their business at that stage, not now, so we talked with them and we decided to just hold out until the kumis grew and make it worthwhile. Otherwise, they’re just setting up for low numbers,” Gray said.
But Gray says there are some positives to a slow start to the season.
“The positive is it allows the industry time to come back. The tour operators, and even managing the protocols, we have an opportunity to slowly build up,” he said. “And I think by the fall we’ll start to see passenger numbers climb—that’s the positive.”
Gray says the cruise industry hasn’t yet fully recovered from the pandemic. Sales were very good for a while but repeated waves of Covid-19 led to come cancellations. However, Gray says there is still a lot of optimism in the industry.
Cruise companies are still building new ships, and more than 20 will be coming online soon.
“It will be tough. Financially the cruise lines have had to battle it out… but they’ve shown confidence and optimism by still going through with their new builds,” Gray says.
“The cruise companies haven’t backed away from the product so I believe that we will see it come back, and we’ll probably see it come back even stronger in the future.”
For the local vendors and tour companies who rely on cruise passengers, that’s good news.
Trevor Nichols is the associate editor of Huddle, based in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].