Antigua open for business – excursions, tour operators, restaurants and hotels are operating

Antigua is back to offering excursions and adventures across Antigua. Popular activities in Antigua, from Stingray City to zip-lining adventures to safari land tours to cruises, sea circumnavigation and snorkeling tours are available once again. Tour operators have re-opened after Hurricane Irma and are providing visitors with new experiences.

Restaurants and bars have re-opened including popular beach establishments such as Beach Limers, Coconut Grove, Sheer Rocks, Turners, Darkwood Beach Bar and Restaurant, Trappas, Le Bistro, and the over 150 dining options to choose from in Antigua.

Close to 2000 of the country’s hotel room stock will be available by the end of October for the start of the peak winter season following traditional summer upgrades and renovations throughout resorts. Some of these resorts include Cocobay, Jumby Bay, Curtain Bluff, Carlisle Bay, Hawksbill by Rex Resorts, Heritage Quay Hotel, St. James’s Club, The Inn at English Harbor, and Nonsuch Bay. The first properties opening post-upgrades are Pineapple Beach Club and Blue Waters Resort and Spa opening on September 14th and September 21st respectively. Hotels and resorts that are open year-round are happily welcoming and hosting visitors to Antigua.

Antigua’s new, state-of-the-art, VC Bird International Airport and cruise ship berths are welcoming passengers from across the US, Canada, UK and Europe, and Caribbean.

Intercruises completes phase 1 development of SafeAshore

Intercruises Shoreside & Port Services, a global business offering ground handling and port agency services to the ocean and river cruise industry, has completed the development of SafeAshore, a new system designed to help further enhance the safety of shore excursion guests and guides. Following five months of development, trials were successfully carried out in August 2017 during shore excursions in Marseille, where the system is live and being used by the local Intercruises team.

SafeAshore enables Intercruises and cruise line teams to track tour groups’ locations at any time and provides a single and secure communication channel for instant messaging between guides and the Intercruises team. The system is also pre-loaded with information to aid incident response, including local emergency phone numbers and a map highlighting nearby ‘safe places’, such as police stations or hospitals.

“Safety is a priority for Intercruises and SafeAshore will enhance our ability to respond to incidents during our shore excursions, enabling more timely, informed and efficient incident management. This is an innovative, yet simple solution that has been developed based on the real incident experiences of our own teams and in response to concerns raised in recent years by cruise lines, ports and destinations. A huge thanks to our guides and the local Marseille team in completing the successful SafeAshore trials.” Said Olga Piqueras, Managing Director, Intercruises Shoreside & Port Services.

SafeAshore is a two-part system, consisting of a mobile and web application. Guides install and log into the SafeAshore mobile application, entering basic details specific to their tour to make it active. Active tours are visible to Intercruises and cruise line teams on the web application, with real-time locations displayed on a map. SafeAshore runs in the background on guides’ phone and constantly sends location data, which is recorded on the web application and stored for reporting purposes. Once a tour is completed, the guide logs out of SafeAshore and the application remains dormant, no longer collecting data, until the next login.

“I was happy to be involved in this project and see the value the system can have during an emergency and also in everyday operations, such as informing other guides or the port team of heavy traffic.” Said a guide from Marseille involved in the SafeAshore trials.

SafeAshore is being updated with information for other destinations as availability of the system is expanded across France and the Mediterranean during 2017, with implementation in other regions planned for 2018.

CLIA Reports on a productive Port and Destination Summit

The Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) hosted its fourth Port and Destination Summit on 5th September. Over 260 international partners of CLIA Executive Partner Program, including 50 cruise line executives gathered at the Hamburg Messe and Congress GmbH Hamburg, one day before the Seatrade Europe Cruise & River Convention official opening.

The objective of the Summit, to generate concrete business discussions between decision makers from ports, destinations and the broad cruise industry’s supply chain, was met. After a general opening session hosted by Cindy d’Aoust, President and CEO of CLIA, and Bo Larsen, Senior Vice President Strategic Partnerships, CLIA, nine different breakout sessions engaged all participants. Driven by field experts, the sessions covered various topics: safe, secure and sustainable cruise shipping; shore excursion planning and management during peak demand; cruise destination marketing; cruise port infrastructure and its impact on the destination; berthing allocation policy; the future role of the port agent and the importance of tourist guides, ambassadors of destinations.

Present in many discussion panels, Giora Israel, Senior Vice President, Port and Destination Development, Carnival Corp. & Plc reported back on a variety of topics covered during the one day event: “The sessions were concrete and practical for all delegates. We could share our combined efforts towards a sustainable and growing industry in need of efficient and creative itinerary planning. We also underlined the importance of our port agents and the pivotal role of guides at all our port of calls. We are always adding new destinations, so we shared our views on the importance of timely destination marketing”.

Elisabetta de Nardo, Director Port and Destination Operations, Silversea Cruises & Chair of CLIA Europe’s Port and Destination Committee, also commented: “This year we noted even greater participation and dialogue from the CLIA cruise line members and Executive Partners. The industry knowledge is increasingly shared, creating business opportunities and a variety of solutions for participants. For cruise lines, the guest experience in a non-negotiable element and our partners’ understanding of our goals is only beneficial to all industry players”.

More partners commented on the benefits of the Summit; ‘a time-saver through best practice sharing’ for the Port of Dover with ‘rich and invaluable content’ for Cruise Newfoundland Labrador, a Canadian marketing destination company.

The Port and Destination Summit created positive networking opportunities and facilitated one-to-one pre-booked business sessions with cruise lines decision makers, to generate further business openings for CLIA members.

French Mediterranean ports exhibiting together at Seatrade Europe

For the very first time at Seatrade Cruise Europe, all the French Med Ports are exhibiting together on the same stand (608) with a surface area of 72m 2 .

A new logo has been launched to help identify the French Med Ports : their strategic goal is to help promote together the navigation area of south of France and increase the cruise call activity in each of the French Med ports.

The stand brings together the following cruise clubs / ports (22 ports in total):

– Var Provence Cruise Club (Fréjus, St-Raphaël, St-Tropez, Le Lavandou, Sanary)
– The ports of Toulon bay (Toulon and La-Seyne-sur-Mer)
– French Riviera Cruise Club (Villefranche, Nice, Cannes, Antibes)
– Marseille Provence Cruise Club (Marseille and Cassis)
– Port of Sete Cruise Club (Sete)
– Corsica Cruise Club (Bastia, Calvi, Rousse Island, Saint-Florent)
– Ports of South Corsica (Ajaccio, Porto-Vecchio, Bonifacio, Propriano)

All French Med ports have expressed their wish to organize a special event during the exhibition: the installation of a bowling alley is planned alongside the stand (coordinated by OBUT), and an invitation is open for all delegates to come and play throughout the show. Two highlights are planned with a challenge-competition at 17:00 on 6 and 7 September, which will allow the lucky winners to win prizes (gourmet baskets provided by the French Med Ports).

New cruise terminal design work gets underway at Port Canaveral

Efforts are underway at Port Canaveral for a new cruise terminal. The Canaveral Port Authority (CPA) has contracted with CH2M Engineering to provide the waterside design, engineering and support services for Port Canaveral's new Cruise Terminal 3. CPA Commissioners approved the $1.2 million funding for CH2M's project management contract at its June 7 meeting, taking the first step in a two-year work plan to build a state-of-the-art facility able to serve cruise vessels with up to 8,000 passengers calling on the Port. The new terminal will replace one of Port's oldest cruise terminals currently being used for single-day port of call vessels.

"Port Canaveral continues to experience growth in all sectors, and particularly in our cruise business," said Port Canaveral CEO Captain John Murray. "With 80 percent of our revenue from cruise operations, it's important that we continuously improve our capabilities to meet the current and future needs some of the world's largest, most sophisticated cruise ships."

CH2M will assist CPA is securing permits from various state and local agencies including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Coast Guard, Environmental Protection Agency, and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The Port will invest $150 million for the new terminal, targeted for completion in 2019, which will support an estimated nearly 4,000 permanent jobs, in coordination with the Port's overall modernization and improvement plans, including the Port's channel widening and deepening, and repairs and improvements to cargo piers.

Recognizing Port Canaveral's economic role and responsibility in Brevard County and Central Florida, the CPA has invested $195 million over the last few years in the Port's cruise terminal infrastructure, while remaining steadfast to its charter commitment to provide community access to the Port's parks and recreation facilities.

"The popularity and avid use of the Port's Jetty Park recreation facilities adjacent to the CT-3 terminal, especially the public boat ramps and fishing areas, are very important to the Port," said Port CEO Murray. "The Port's Board of Commissioners has directed that engineering staff make continued public access to these areas a priority, and to ensure before, during, and after construction that boat parking is minimally impacted."

"The new cruise terminal plans absolutely demand that whatever parking area may be encumbered during construction will be replaced one-for-one. The net loss of any parking in that area will be negligible," stated Capt. Murray.

"Beginning with this design phase and on through the building phases, visitors may see engineers, contractors, equipment and Port personnel working in and around the current terminal building and bulkhead. Down the road, it may be necessary to reconfigure some current parking spaces and set temporary limits for day parking at Jetty Park to accommodate construction equipment and crews."