The cruise ship season officially begins today with the docking of the Dawn Princess at Burnie, bringing the first of tens of thousands of cruise passengers to Tasmania.
About 2,000 passengers and crew from the Dawn Princess will today spend the day exploring Burnie and North-West Coast.
Last season more than $3.4 million was injected into city by 18,460 passengers aboard 12 cruise ships.
This season, Burnie will welcome 11 cruise ships with a similar economic boon expected for the city and its surrounds.
Burnie has fast become a favourite for cruise passengers, averaging 8.8 out of 10 according to passenger satisfaction results – well above the Australian average of seven out of 10.
The port’s access to some of our state’s most unique destinations including Cradle Mountain and Stanley definitely adds to its popularity.
This will only increase with the addition of the fixed mooring dolphin, which will enable access for almost all cruise ships operating in Australian waters.
TasPorts recently announced it would invest $1.5 million in the infrastructure that allows ships up to 315 metres to dock, rather than the current limit of 285m.
This will unlock huge potential, with nine ships calling into Hobart this season that are between 285m and 315m, capable of carrying 23,000 passengers.
Installation is expected to commence mid next year and is due to be completed for the 2016-17 cruise season.
Cruise ship tourism is a growing market for Tasmania, with 58 vessels visiting our state last year and 64 scheduled this season, and next season bookings indicated a jump to 82 arrivals, that’s a 32 per cent increase.
It is a sector we are committed to grow through the recently released five year air and sea access strategy, Access 2020.
This will help us to grow the record number of visitors coming to our state, which will help to achieve our target of attracting 1.5 million visitors to our state every year by 2020.
Jeremy Rockliff, Deputy Premier
