Departments

Protesters delay cruise ships in Venice

Details: Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen; Category: Ports & Destinations Ports & Destinations; Published: 17 September 2012 17 September 2012

The departure of at least three cruise ships from Venice in Italy was delayed on Sunday after protesters blocked the channel leading from the cruise terminal to the sea with their boats, media reports say.

"It's the most evident demonstration of the vulgar exploitation of my city. The beauty of Venice is undoubted. But the city pays for it like a prostitute that is too beautiful,” a protester told the BBC. "To see that the sophisticated city of my childhood has become Disneyland, full of bad quality souvenirs, makes me sick in the stomach. And these ships are the representation of the nightmare that Venice is living through."

But the managing director of the port where the ships dock, Roberto Perocchio, rejects all this. He points out that the liners take just minutes to pass any point in the city. Any impact on its famous vistas is fleeting. Each ship pays €150,000 for using the port’s facilities, he added.

30% increase in cruise passenger throughput in Valencia

Details: Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen; Category: Ports & Destinations Ports & Destinations; Published: 11 September 2012 11 September 2012

The cruise services arm of ACCIONA Trasmediterranea, the Spanish conglomerate better known for its ferry operations, reported a 30% increase in passenger throughput at its Valencia cruise terminal, Alan Lam reports.

At the end of August this year, they had recorded a total of over 300,000 passengers and 119 cruise calls, well on it way to meet the full year expectation of 500,000 passengers and 211 calls.

Compared to the same period previous year, the number of calls remained the same. The company attributed the increase in passenger numbers to bigger ships.

On just one day this summer, 9 September , ACCIONA served three major liners in Valencia – Queen Mary 2, Adventure of the Seas, and Costa Pacífica. Together they brought 10,000 passengers to the port. The company’s record for this year is four ships in one day.

The ACCIONA Maritime Terminal in Valencia is capable to berthing 564-metre cruise ships and up to two vessels simultaneously.

PortMiami tunnel project reaches a milestone

Details: Written by Teijo Niemelä Teijo Niemelä; Category: Ports & Destinations Ports & Destinations; Published: 01 August 2012 01 August 2012

The Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), also known as Harriet, arrived at PortMiami this morning completing the first of what will be two tunnel tubes under Biscayne Bay linking the Port with the mainland. This marks the half-way point in the boring process.

"It is a milestone day for PortMiami," Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez told a crowd of more than 500 onlookers who cheered Harriet's festive arrival on Dodge Island. "The tunnel is critical to PortMiami's future growth because it will allow port traffic to move more expeditiously to and from the interstate system, and will help reduce traffic downtown. This project has been an engineering feat of note. But, even more significantly, the PortMiami tunnel is an example of what our port is all about -- a public-private collaboration that will make our port even more dynamic tomorrow than it is today," Gimenez added.

After traveling 4,000 feet under the bay, Harriet will now be turned around and will start the dig back towards Watson Island. Each tunnel tube will carry two-lanes of traffic under Government Cut. Officials from Miami-Dade County, the City of Miami, Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), the Federal Highway Administration, Miami Access Tunnel, Bouygues Civil Works Florida along with the hundreds of workers on the tunnel project, watched this historical event a Break-Out celebration at PortMiami.

The PortMiami Tunnel project is a public-private partnership between Miami Access Tunnel, FDOT, Miami-Dade County and the City of Miami. Construction began May 2010, and the project is expected to be completed in May 2014.

Port Everglades welcomes new Business Development Director

Details: Written by Teijo Niemelä Teijo Niemelä; Category: Ports & Destinations Ports & Destinations; Published: 12 July 2012 12 July 2012

Michael Vanderbeek, formerly with the Port of Long Beach, CA, the nation's second busiest container cargo seaport, is the new Director of Business Development for Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood, FL, announced Port Everglades Chief Executive and Port Director Steven Cernak.

"Michael's demonstrated leadership skills, knowledge of international trade and multi-lingual communication abilities made him the top choice to lead the Business Development Division for Broward County's Port Everglades Department," Cernak said.

The Port Everglades Business Development Division is responsible for developing marketing and sales strategies to draw additional cruise business and containerized, dry and break bulk cargo volumes to Port Everglades. Staff provides customer service to the cruise and cargo shipping communities and markets Foreign-Trade Zone No. 25 and other Port facilities to the maritime community. The Port's Corporate & Community Relations Section is also part of the Business Development Division under Vanderbeek's leadership.

Vanderbeek served as the Manager of Business Development for the Port of Long Beach where he managed business and economic development including identifying new market opportunities where he helped facilitate more than $86 million in new trade. He also worked closely to build and maintain relationships with customers in the cargo shipping field and to promote and administer Foreign-Trade Zone No. 50. Prior to that position, Vanderbeek served as the Manager of Strategic Planning for the Port of Long Beach.

In addition to his work at the Port of Long Beach, Vanderbeek served as a faculty member at the Sol Price School of Policy at the University of Southern California (USC) where he collaborated with partners such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the American Planning Association, and the municipal governments of Ningbo and Zhoushan, China, to develop research and policy agendas related to the economic benefits of trade for major metropolitan regions.

Vanderbeek earned a Master of Planning degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Southern California and graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor's Degree in Spanish from Boise State University. Vanderbeek is a member of the American Association of Port Authorities' Maritime Economic Development Committee and Real Estate Best Practices Group.

As one of South Florida's leading economic powerhouses, Port Everglades is a major gateway for international trade and cruise vacations. Already the second busiest cruise port in the world, Port Everglades is also one of the nation's leading container ports and South Florida's main seaport for receiving petroleum products including gasoline, jet fuel and alternative fuels. The Port Everglades Department is a self-supporting Enterprise Fund of Broward County government with operating revenues of approximately $139 million in Fiscal Year 2011 (October 1, 2010 through September 30, 2011). It does not rely on local tax dollars for operations. The total value of economic activity at Port Everglades is approximately $15.3 billion. More than 160,000 Florida jobs are impacted by the Port, including almost 11,400 people who work for companies that provide direct services to Port Everglades.

Canada simplifies clearance procedures

Details: Written by Teijo Niemelä Teijo Niemelä; Category: Ports & Destinations Ports & Destinations; Published: 06 July 2012 06 July 2012

Starting this year, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) will pilot the Cruise Ship Gateway Strategy to simplify cruise ship reporting requirements and save time and money for cruise ship operators and the CBSA. Beginning August 2012, the CBSA will fully clear all vessels whose first point of arrival (FPOA) is St. John's, Newfoundland or Halifax, Nova Scotia. Full clearance includes both admissibility (immigration) and goods (customs).

Under this pilot, cruise ships entering Canada will now be able to explore Canadian communities with greater flexibility, according to the CBSA. Once cleared at an FPOA site, the ship can visit any port of call within Canada with greater ease. Passengers can disembark and embark without further CBSA clearance, provided that the ship does not subsequently dock at a foreign port. This process will apply even if the ship enters international waters and then re-enters Canada. However, should a cruise ship dock at a foreign port, upon returning to Canada, re-clearing through CBSA will be required.

This change to operations will maximize efficiencies for the CBSA while stimulating local economies by promoting travel and tourism along Canada's coasts and inland waterways, the CBSA concludes, and will promote more flexible itineraries, it says, while enabling the agency to meet its fiscal responsibilities under the Government of Canada's Deficit Reduction Action Plan.