Silver Surfer Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 The only possible benefit I can see would be that the berth could be used for larger ferries which could be used by the Liverpool-Belfast route as a stopover? I can't see what cruise ship passengers would spend their money on other than coach tours, coffee and buns and a TT 'T' shirt? You really think that the big Irish Sea operators are going to royally p*** off their passengers and risk losing them to their competitors by 'calling in' to the Isle of Man and adding hours to their journey? You are living in cloud-cuckoo land.....it will never happen. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Onchan Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 The only possible benefit I can see would be that the berth could be used for larger ferries which could be used by the Liverpool-Belfast route as a stopover? I can't see what cruise ship passengers would spend their money on other than coach tours, coffee and buns and a TT 'T' shirt? You really think that the big Irish Sea operators are going to royally p*** off their passengers and risk losing them to their competitors by 'calling in' to the Isle of Man and adding hours to their journey? You are living in cloud-cuckoo land.....it will never happen. No but it does open up the field for larger vessels to operate to/from IOM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silver Surfer Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 I read a lot here why we shouldn't attempt such a venture, yet there seems to be little in the way of how we do grow tourism on the Island. The negativity is quite incredible. It is not just about the 5 or 6 hours these people spend on excursions or strolling through Douglas, there is a longer term benefit here. We have an idyllic Island which I'm fairly certain these passengers would note and choose to return in the future. I agree. This is sustainable business if it's developed & handled in the right way. Here's the 2017 schedule for Liverpool: http://www.cruise-liverpool.com/cruise-call-schedule/ Liverpool is an internationally known destination with huge art, music and architectural culture. The Isle of Man is a backward looking twee anachronism. Sure there will always be a small market for that, but cruise passengers want big name destinations. The Scottish Islands only do as well as they do because they are a natural stop over point when cruise ships transit between summer European and Winter Caribbean destinations. Think about it. Cruise liners can and do call in to both Liverpool and Dublin which are iconic places to visit. Do you really think cruise passengers will want to waste another day of their itinerary to cal in to the Isle of Man only a few hours from each of the much more exciting destinations? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silver Surfer Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 Here we f**king go again !! To quote the immortal Stuart Baggs ""We haven't just got one white Elephant ,we've got a whole field of white elephants with room for more"" !! The stupidity of these people never ceases to astound me! How can bringing people to the Island to spend money (do you think they pay zero for the services before coming ashore?) be stupid? How many passengers do you think it will really take to recover £50m of build costs, plus another £25m of financing and operational costs? If it is such a 'no brainer' let the shipping person pushing the scheme find the finance and fund it!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Power Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 The only possible benefit I can see would be that the berth could be used for larger ferries which could be used by the Liverpool-Belfast route as a stopover? I can't see what cruise ship passengers would spend their money on other than coach tours, coffee and buns and a TT 'T' shirt? You really think that the big Irish Sea operators are going to royally p*** off their passengers and risk losing them to their competitors by 'calling in' to the Isle of Man and adding hours to their journey? You are living in cloud-cuckoo land.....it will never happen. I only said that was the only possible benefit, I, like you, am not a shipping consultant but I would never say never. It opens the port to larger vessels and means that we don't have to have bespoke ships built to enter Douglas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GD4ELI Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 (edited) interesting - could be one way of spending the floundering £50 DED development fund in one hit... http://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/ambitious-investment-will-pay-dividends-says-businessman/ I say bollocks. That's £10 million a year, for the government to recover £10 million tourists will have to spend at least £50 million and exactly what will they buy? Again - bollocks! Edited January 17, 2017 by GD4ELI 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarne Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 It is utter bollocks. Orkney get 80 ships and only get £4 million Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodders Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 It is utter bollocks. Orkney get 80 ships and only get £4 million Yeah but we have silt dredging in our budget. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slinkydevil Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 what will they buy? Manx Knobs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GD4ELI Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 what will they buy? Manx Knobs. They're in decline these days Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbie Bobster Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 (edited) I fired up the Fermi estimator and this is what I got. Average direct spend per cruise visitor seems to be order of magnitude about £100. Say indirect spend via fees, service costs etc is 50% on top of that. Assume smallish vessels, max 1,000 and 80% of the passengers visit. So that's £120k turnover per ship visit. Take the "economic benefit" as similar to the margin on the turnover at about 25%, that's £30k per ship visit. Say 50 visits per season, that's £1.5m per annum of benefit. Very quick and dirty analysis, but the direct economic benefit busienss case doesn't seem to stack up. ETA: There's probably a VAT/tax benefit in addition which might double the economic benefit, but it's still a long paybacl for £50mil. Edited January 17, 2017 by Bobbie Bobster 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Onchan Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 Here we f**king go again !! To quote the immortal Stuart Baggs ""We haven't just got one white Elephant ,we've got a whole field of white elephants with room for more"" !! The stupidity of these people never ceases to astound me! How can bringing people to the Island to spend money (do you think they pay zero for the services before coming ashore?) be stupid? How many passengers do you think it will really take to recover £50m of build costs, plus another £25m of financing and operational costs? If it is such a 'no brainer' let the shipping person pushing the scheme find the finance and fund it!! Does it matter how long the cost recovery will be? Are we suddenly benchmarking infrastructure projects based on how long it will take to recover the costs? Do we do that with roads, the airport etc? After all visitors use those as well. Let's hear what information is available on the financing and other aspects of the proposed project before writing it off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asitis Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 I read a lot here why we shouldn't attempt such a venture, yet there seems to be little in the way of how we do grow tourism on the Island. The negativity is quite incredible. It is not just about the 5 or 6 hours these people spend on excursions or strolling through Douglas, there is a longer term benefit here. We have an idyllic Island which I'm fairly certain these passengers would note and choose to return in the future. I agree wholeheartedly on the idyllic island bit and that is why I live here, however I maintain if people are going to come ashore for a limited time we need to up our game so that limited time is a catalyst to get them to revisit. I don't see our current infrastructure and shopping experience to be a draw for upmarket cruise passengers ! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homarus Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 Here we f**king go again !! To quote the immortal Stuart Baggs ""We haven't just got one white Elephant ,we've got a whole field of white elephants with room for more"" !! The stupidity of these people never ceases to astound me! How can bringing people to the Island to spend money (do you think they pay zero for the services before coming ashore?) be stupid? Because it's all about the process and keeping people busy ,certain people will indeed become very wealthy if they were indeed stupid enough to go ahead with this bollocks but it won't be the Manx people . Frighteningly though, on my last trip home I was speaking to someone who had actually been approached to supply plant etc for this project if it went ahead ,so they are seriously thinking of undertaking this massive gamble,they're f***king dangerous this lot and if this "project" is the best they can come up with then we are truly ruled by idiots! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Power Posted January 17, 2017 Share Posted January 17, 2017 Perhaps the desire to build some sort of liner berth, at a lower cost than £50m I hope, would provide impetus to improving our offer and in particular improve Douglas. This would have the added benefit of making the island a good place to come and live and work, locate yourself and your business or just make it better for all of us? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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