Expecting a dip after six years of growth, companies say the number of passengers departing from Tampa will set a record by 2007.
By STEVE HUETTEL
Published August 27, 2004
TAMPA - The port's high-profile cruise business has hit a soft spot.
After six years of strong growth, the number of cruise passengers departing from Tampa is expected to drop slightly for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 and dip again the following year, Tampa Port Authority officials said Thursday.
The projected passenger decreases result from the loss of a Mexico cruise ferry and temporary relocations of two larger ships, said Michael Macaluso, the agency's chief financial officer. Passenger boardings should rebound strongly after that, he said.
"We see this as an aberration, not a trend," Macaluso told port commissioners at a workshop on the port authority's budget for 2005.
After a money-losing inaugural season that ended in April 2003, operators of the cruise ferry Yucatan Express canceled plans to return at the end of the year because of problems with a Mexican port.
They pledged to resume service in November 2004. But the Port of Morelos still hasn't dredged a shipping channel for the ferry, and Tampa port officials don't expect the Yucatan Express for the upcoming winter season, said senior marketing director Wade Elliott.
Also missing will be the Noordam, one of two Holland America Line ships that sailed from Tampa last season.
The cruise company will lease the vessel to British-owned Thomson Holidays in November and not put a replacement in Tampa this season, said Rose Abello, a Holland America spokeswoman. Holland America hopes to resume cruises with two Tampa-based vessels in 2006, she said.
The Carnival Cruise Lines will bring a larger ship, the Carnival Miracle, to Tampa in November. But the 2,124-passenger ship will sail to Jacksonville to serve as a floating hotel for the Super Bowl and miss two Caribbean cruises from Tampa.
The port has seen explosive cruise growth since the late 1990s. For the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2003, about 405,000 passengers took cruises from Tampa - nearly twice as many as four years earlier.
The port authority projects that will drop to 403,000 passengers for the year ending Sept. 30, and about 392,000 in fiscal 2005.
But the agency predicts the number of passengers will bounce back the next two years, hitting a record 474,000 in fiscal 2007, assuming the Noordam returns and a new cruise line comes to Tampa for winter cruises, Elliott said.
Port authority revenue from the cruise business, which will total about $7.43 million this year, should drop less than 1 percent next year.
That will be more than offset by increases from bulk cargo (22.3 percent) and property leases (4 percent), staffers said.
The budget included proposed increases in port fees, which tenants and port users have criticized as excessive.
Port staffers will review the objections and make a final recommendation to commissioners on the increases before their Sept. 21 board meeting.
