Eric Mahé, who works for Guernsey-based port handling agents Allied Coasters, said that the Island needed to diversify the way in which it attracts visitors and that the cruise industry could be the way to do it.
In Guernsey, large vessels such as the 290-metre-long Costa Pacifica – capable of carrying nearly 3,800 passengers – is able to anchor in the Little Russel, adjacent to St Peter Port.
Its passengers are then offloaded on a roughly seven-minute tender journey to the island.
However, in Jersey, the waters around St Helier are too shallow to accommodate larger vessels, and ships must anchor much further out before their customers are transferred to the Harbour – a journey which can take around 35 to 40 minutes.
And now, Mr Mahé says that the cruise ship industry is a business that the Island needs to look at capitalising on more closely. A total of 13 cruise ships were scheduled to visit the Island this summer, although Mr Mahé believes there is scope for much higher numbers should the right investment be made in infrastructure.
‘We could absolutely increase the number that we are currently getting – six, seven maybe even ten-fold. I had a cruise ship in last week and there were about 2,000 people that came ashore from that one.
‘Let’s say we had 900 people and each of those spent £10, which is a very conservative estimate, that is £9,000 going into the local economy. But I am sure it would be much more than that – that is very conservative. Yes, a lot do go on tours, but I think those are something like £30 a head and we had about ten coaches filled from today’s cruise ship [Vasco da Gama, which anchored at the Demi des Pas]. We know tourism numbers are not anything like they used to be so we need to diversify from what we have got and this is a good way to do that.’
Mr Mahé added that although a number of companies were inquiring about bringing their vessels to Jersey, the long tender time was putting them off – especially when a number of their passengers could be elderly or infirm. And he added that there was no straightforward solution to the problem and that it could involve spending a significant sum of money.
‘I am not an expert on that by any means, but it would involve getting a marine surveyor here to see what can be done – whether that be dredging or putting a longer pontoon [berth] out to sea, but I think that would be quite difficult. Using St Catherine is good, but it is not great from a traffic point of view,’ he said.
‘It is absolutely a question of money, there is no doubt about it. It depends on which way Jersey wants to go with it.’
