Two big events this week put Australia on course to become the regions largest hub for the burgeoning cruise market – and both seem set to have a profound influence on our future tourism.
Cruise is already a $4.8 bn part of our tourist industry. But everyone agrees growth has faltered because Sydney, our biggest draw card for overseas travellers, has reached capacity. During our cruise season, the city with two of our most Insta-desirable icons – the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House – is basically full.
So what happened this week which points up an enormous opportunity to turbo charge our cruise industry and send those flagging figures in the stratosphere?
Firstly, Royal Caribbean, the world’s second biggest cruise line next to Carnival Corporation and a company with a strong track record of helping deliver huge infrastructure projects, announced it was building the world’s first carbon neutral private cruise resort in Vanuatu.
Private islands and resorts are the new way for cruise companies to increase passenger spending, and have proved amazingly popular in the Caribbean. Vanuatu is on many pacific itineraries out of Australia and just over three hours flying time away.
Secondly, Royal Caribbean’s chairman Richard Fain has been lobbying our politicians in a bid to speed up the development of Port Botany’s third cruise terminal – which would open the way to the line’s Oasis class ships, which carry over 6,000 tourists at a time.
Mr Fain is one of the most powerful men in the cruise industry. If he is talking to our pollies, it means something big is going down. And the timeline of development at Port Botany has, if all goes according to plan construction beginning around the time Lelepa in Vanuatu will come on stream
Mr Fain praised the Australian market for its growth and talked up the possible deployment of Oasis-class ships in the region – suggesting the lack of infrastructure in Sydney was the only thing holding this back.
He told The Australian newspaper: “We are a long-term business; we are here for the long-term.”
The line’s new Australia MD Gavin Smith also mentioned the possibility of Oasis class ships for Australia when interviewed by Cruise Passenger. Like Mr Fain, he too talked of the readiness of Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart and Fremantle and New Zealand.
“Botany Bay seems like such a no-brainer . It’s good for the guests, especially non-Australians , because it is close to the Sydney Airport. It’s the least disruptive; it fires on every cylinder ,” Mr Fain told The Australian.
“Larger ships need to be taken into account, because they attract a higher per diem per guest. I think we are moving towards a consensus that this is in Australia’s best interest.”
According to The Australian, Mr Fain said he would be meeting various NSW government officials to discuss the port infrastructure issues.
Imagine: Ovation of the Seas, which arrives tomorrow for the start of its season and carries around 4,500 passengers, is tied up at Sydney’s Overseas Passenger Terminal; P&O’s Explorer and The Sea Princess are moored at White Bay with another. And the Oasis class Symphony of the Seas is at Botany’s brand spanking new cruise terminal.
If that happened, spending by passengers, crew and others could make the industry worth over $2 bn in just six months for Sydney alone.
Amid all these exciting possibilities, the Port Authority of NSW is preparing for its consultation exercise at the start of the process to establish a business case for Port Botany as Sydney’s third cruise terminal.
A new website and update has already received hundreds of interactions, with residents pointing out their favourite leisure activity sites.
As a passenger, I’d love Botany Bay. Convenient, central, well-connected. And it gives options that are not available with only one berth in the city.
Not in my backyard..lol.
It’s called port botany for a reason.
Just get on with building it..
How about you make a cruise from Sydney to Malta or from Malta to Sydney
So you want to take away our beach at yarra bay to do this ? Tell my young son to his face he can’t go swimming there anymore or kayaking or board riding when there’s a swell. You want to change our lifestyle as we go there all the time . Where’s the consultation with the local community, the indigenous community. You want to take our beach away and ruin our other beaches what exactly do we get out of this ?
Local residents really want Cruise bosses and the Government to consider our local heritage, culture and environment before making a disastrous decision that can never be reversed. There are other options that can be considered.
why not Woolloomooloo finger wharf or extension of Garden Island fitting out wharf
We don’t want this! Port Kembla are screaming for a terminal – give it to those who want it! Regardless of that, it’ll ruin our community, whole ecosystems and might even send a seahorse species extinct; LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE – NO CRUISE SHIPS IN YARRA BAY!!
Botany Bay is not what cruise passengers want, they want to have the opportunity to sail through the Heads not past the Heads. Tell me how Sydney will make money from cruise ships coming into Port Botany when all they will possibly do is board buses that will take them straight to the airport or airport to ship where as ships arriving in Sydney Harbour they have the opportunity to see the sights of Sydney CBD and spend money. The whole experience is to sail into Sydney Harbour. The government is not listening to the cruise public.
The dredging required for a mega cruise ship terminal in Botany Bay poses a significant environmental threat to all coastal residents of Sydney; and if the Royal Caribbean cruise line, the Port Authority of NSW and the NSW Liberal Government were to get their way, by 2023 many of Sydney’s most iconic ocean beaches would be suffering from significant environmental contamination.
A mega cruise ship terminal in Botany Bay would require the dredging of millions of tonnes of seabed sediment (spoil) to create a shipping channel, swing basin and berth boxes for two 350 metre mega cruise ships.
Some of the sediment would be used for reclamation of land side terminal space, the rest would be towed out of Botany Bay in barges and dumped at sea – as close to Sydney’s coastline as the NSW government could get away with.
As a guide, to what might happen, the dredged spoil from the Port Botany expansion, highly contaminated with Tributyltin (TBT), was dumped off the coast of Sydney, only to wash back into shore around Coogee.
The NSW Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has warnings in place to not disturb the sediment in many of the rivers, estuaries, channels and canals that drain into Botany Bay. This is because years of industry and shipping have deposited toxic substances deep within the now stable sediment of the bay. Products such as:
The sediment contains a range of toxic chemicals, polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) and heavy metals such as mercury and lead from the years of operation of the Bunnerong coal fired power station, organochlorine pesticides (Chlordane, DDT, and Dieldrin). Hexachlorobenzene (HCB), Tributyltin (TBT) an anti-fouling agent, and banned product that “is one of the most poisonous substances to be released to the aquatic environment today”.
Of equal concern are highly toxic Per and Poly-Fluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) from Sydney Airport and other locations where firefighters have trained. The EPA already has warnings in place regarding the consumption of fish caught in the bay area, mostly due to PFAS.
The Port Authority has stated on their timeline that they will use State Significant Development provisions, bypassing the normal legal requirements that industry would have to go through before dredging. Even though this development is clearly for the benefit of Royal Caribbean. Not for the benefit of the people of Sydney.
Biomagnification will concentrate all these historic toxins up the food chain, affecting fishing anywhere off the coast of Sydney for years to come!