Cruising, not all smooth sailing

By Davendra Sharma and Anna Buckley

NEW Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji will be attracting more visitors this year from cruise

ships.

Qantas subsidiaries, Viva Holdings and Jetabout, who jointly book 60 per cent of the Pacific islands-bound Austra lian tourists, found that as recession gripped most would-be travellers last year, cheaper holidays like Bali, Hawaii and Los Angeles were preferred. Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Tahiti were not so popular.

Viva’s Pacific manager Karen Miller told Pacific Islands Monthly that though Fiji was able to sway some tourists with cheap $A499 return airfares from Syd ney, Melbourne and Brisbane; New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Tahiti have remained high-cost destinations.

“Vanuatu has had a fairly steady flow because of the low flight frequencies,” she said. Viva, however, is offering special packages to Vanuatu with three interna tional hotels, Iririki, LeLagon and Radisson Royal Palms Resort. It also launched packages with Qantas to Ta hiti.

In February, it started selling Air

Pacific’s low fares on fly-cruise packages with Italian cruiseliner, Starlauro Cruises.

“It gives option to travellers to either cruise to Fiji or fly across by Air Pacific,”

Miller said.

New Caledonia and Vanuatu are main destinations on Starlauro's schedules this year. Solomon Islands capital, Honi ara and Papua New Guinea’s alluring Samarai island have been included in a March 21 sail, which will also make stopovers at Ambrym volcanoes in Vanuatu. Three other cruises from mid April to early May are planned for Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia, It has cut back fares by up to 28 per cent to get more travellers on board. Its Archille Lauro has a capacity to carry 930 passengers. Starlauro’s Pacific products spokeswoman Marcy Furse told PIM that the Pacific Islands destinations were picked according to customer preference.

“Starlauro has found that a lot of passengers want places which offer some thing different. They want to look around and explore.”

Cruise ship trips cost considerably less

than travelling by air and staying at hotels, she said.

More than half of all Vanuatu’s

are offloaded in Port Vila, a thousand at a time, once a fortnight. This year, the

v^lT^as*?, rt

™ a haS d °^ led - Many Stay overm g ht ’ some for U P to three da Ys “We make up SUS2O,OOO worth of business every time a tourist boat isjn to y n > not to mention benefits to taxi drivers, minibuses, shop owners, car-hire companies, restaurants and cafes,” said Joel Joseph of Tour Vanuatu. It is good business, he says, because Tourists book trips in advance; money is paid up front.

“Good money for the government,” he says The government owns 55 per cent of y shares £ Tour Vanuatu. .• Ut p ot . everyone wants more cruise S^ 1 ? S ‘ ort . Vlla residents already corn- Pam of n ° lse ’ crow d s and queues, There are profits to be made, but some business houses complain that passengers on pre-paid package tours typically stay no more than a day and meals and entertainment on board are inclusive and pre-paid.

“Cruise ships represent less than 10 per cent of my business,” says Frank King, an independent tour operator. “What Vanuatu needs is big spenders, not people interested only in drink and duty free.” □