Surroundings
Covid and environmental issues aren’t holding back a large-footprint tourism industry in New Zealand
When the Celebrity Eclipse steamed into Otago harbor this week, the freshly painted 12-year-old ship, which can carry about 4,000 passengers and crew on a length of 317 meters, broke through a two-year drought.
Celebrity Eclipse’s first visit to these waters was also the first post-Covid cruise ship to call at Port Chalmers. The government closed borders to the potentially virus-laden ships in March 2020, shutting down a $60 million annual cash tap that kept many tourist operators in Otago liquid.
It is now flowing again. Although the Celebrity Eclipse was in port for just 12 hours, it will be back on November 18, making a total of nine sailings to Dunedin by the end of April.
The second ship of the cruise season, the Grand Princess, makes a 12-hour layover in Dunedin today.
In the season from October to April, more than 100 cruise ships will call in Dunedin. According to Stats NZ, the city is second only to Auckland in the number of cruise passengers it sees.
In the 12 months to June 2019, cruise ship spending across the country was $570 million and 322,000 passengers joined the ride. About half of them were Australians and more than three quarters were aged 50 and over.
According to Port Otago, cruise ships only dock in Dunedin for an average of 10 hours, not long for companies to relieve passengers of some cash.
Most of the dosh goes to the cruise lines. Aboard Celebrity Eclipse, one of 63 ships operated by Miami-based Royal Caribbean International, you can prepay when you book your berth for drinks, Wi-Fi and tips – no word on tip refunds when the waiter checks you in let go.
The ship has 21 bars and restaurants and for the retired passengers with a penchant for lawn care, a 2000 m² lawn.
The industry is so vibrant that the company has 10 new ships on order. With a price tag of $750 million for the Celebrity Eclipse ten years ago, confidence is clearly sky high.
Welcome to Dundee
Fresh from the scenic wonders of Fiordland, the Celebrity Eclipse docked in Port Chalmers at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday after squeezed between the albatross colony at Taiaroa Head and the sandy outcrop of the Aramoana spit.
Not every ship enters the harbor safely.
Four years ago, the Leda Maersk, a container ship similar in size to the Celebrity Eclipse, ran aground just inside the harbor mouth. Had the same fate befell the cruise ship and its passengers washed up on a spit, they would hardly have felt welcome at the first sign of habitation: “BUGGER OFF,” handwritten on a sign dangling from a tree.
The first sign of life they would have run into was a log-like leopard seal on the beach a few hundred yards away, which remained asleep despite the vibrations of the passing 120,000-ton liner.
While undoubtedly not aimed at shipwreck survivors, the pointed words on the sign do express an opinion about cruise passengers fueled by lingering Covid fears.
Dozens of Covid cases aboard the Ovation of the Seas, another Royal Caribbean vessel in New Zealand waters this week, show such concerns are well founded. After a new group of passengers has embarked in Sydney, they are expected to arrive in Dunedin this Wednesday.
However, with more than 10,000 people flying into the country every day, the ever-vigilant University of Otago epidemiologist Michael Baker says cruise ships are only “a relatively small contributor to Covid-19 imports”.
Roadworks ahead
After making landfall safely in Port Chalmers, Celebrity Eclipse passengers were met by a reception of cheering dock workers and a fleet of buses waiting to take them to the city.
Had they caught a bus, their journey would soon have been interrupted at a stop-go sign, as work on a bike path connecting the harbor to the city is nearing completion.
That gives future cruisers the safe green option of pedaling the eight miles to the city center Octagon, the only downside of which may be a lungful of fumes from the Ravensdown fertilization works they’ll pass along the way.
On the plus side, the fewer coaches the cruisers catch, the less disruption there will be for Dunedinites who rely on buses. According to a driver on an already understaffed public transport route, bus companies direct coaches and drivers to the port during the cruise ship season, affecting timetables.
Visitors to the city center will also be affected by other major road works causing disruption and noise, but if carried out according to plan, Dunedin will have a taste of a European city.
The main shopping street, George St, is getting a pedestrian-friendly makeover that will limit three blocks to a one-way street.
However, Jules Radich, who took on the mayoral robes this week after ousting Aaron Hawkins in the local election, wants to make his mark by rethinking the plan, despite the work being in full swing.
Those who agree with Radich — including jeweler Brent Weatherall who was elected to City Council with the same Team Dunedin ticket and has a store in the first block getting the one-way treatment — are touting a 6,000-signature petition as proof of the unpopularity of Radich. the plan .
A quarter of a million cruise passengers who have seen a little bit of the world may be different.
At what price?
Despite all the claimed economic benefits of the cruise industry to ports like Dunedin, the ships would be a natural disaster.
Friends of the Earth calls them an environmental disaster, responsible for dumping toxic waste into the sea, emitting huge amounts of carbon dioxide and killing marine animals.
According to the organization, although Celebrity Eclipse owner Royal Caribbean has announced a “destination net zero” effort to reduce its carbon footprint, the targets are decades away and focus on carbon offsets.
But the cruise company says it has met its 2020 goal of reducing annual greenhouse gas emissions by 35 percent from its 2005 baseline, nearly a year ahead of schedule.
Covid is probably to blame.
But Covid is one of a number of reasons why Bruce Mahalski, who runs Dunedin’s Museum of Natural Mystery, is against the cruise industry.
A Celebrity Eclipse couple showed up on his doorstep on Wednesday despite the museum, which is located in his Royal Terrace home, not being open. Against his better judgment, he let them in.
He is surprised that the cruise industry has survived the pandemic, given the proven potential for spreading the virus on board and lawsuits filed by passengers effectively held captive on infected ships.
“I don’t want people from cruise ships coming here and spreading Covid. Cruise ships are breeding grounds for spreading disease around the world.”
In addition, he says that the ships are major polluters of the sea and carbon emitters.
Not that he lectured the cruise ship customers.
“They were just a young couple excited to see the museum.”
Although the museum is listed on the website dunedinnz.com, which the Port Otago cruise ship site references, Mahalski says he’s not celebrating the ships’ return.
“I’m thrilled to get started as a local tourism operator who doesn’t want to see cruise ships again. It just seems insane.”
Made with support from the Public Interest Journalism Fund
