Cruise facilities upgrade while terminals shut

It was the year of living without cruise ships for Australia’s ports, but time was not wasted in 2020-21 in anticipation of the laid-up liners’ return, even as the whole cruising industry, including port services, forcibly forwent several billion dollars in income.

The Pacific Explorer docks at the Eden Cruise Wharf at Port of Eden. Picture: Port Authority NSW

It was the year of living without cruise ships for Australia’s ports, but time was not wasted in 2020-21 in anticipation of the laid-up liners’ return, even as the whole cruising industry, including port services, forcibly forwent several billion dollars in income.

Work on, and use of, terminals has continued, ranging from construction and maintenance to location filming.

Overseas, many of the cruise ships that used to ply Australia’s waters are still laid up in far-flung moorings or berths in other countries’ waters, as cruising internationally begins a cautiously creeping return. Laid-up usually means being moored with enough crew to keep the liners shipshape. P&O Cruises hopes to restart domestic cruises on December 18, a day after the rolling ban is currently due to end, with voyages for fully vaccinated guests and crew.

Port of Brisbane completed its $177m new International Cruise Terminal, Port Authority of NSW upgraded its Overseas Passenger Terminal at Sydney’s Circular Quay as well as expanding its Eden shore operation on the state’s far south coast and hosting film and television production, and Gladstone Ports Corporation and local authorities set about giving future passengers a better view of the harbour.

The current federal ban on cruise touring from March 2020 has seen a complete loss of cruise arrivals at its ports, says the Port Authority, which provides cruise services in Port Kembla and Newcastle as well as Sydney Harbour and Eden. It expects recovery to take several seasons.

“During this time, Port Authority has continued to develop a ‘return to cruise plan’ in conjunction with federal and state agencies, cruise companies and industry bodies for a safe and secure resumption of cruise as soon as it is safe to do so,” a spokeswoman says.

“We have also taken the opportunity to undertake upgrades to our terminal facilities, amenities, traffic, and pedestrian management to enhance the customer service experience when cruising returns,” she says.

“During Covid, filming and photo shoots were allowed to continue at some of our ports as an essential business, under strict Covid safety guidelines. This included filming for major projects such as the Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings films, Netflix’s Pieces of Her TV series and Interceptor film, and independent film productions such as Carmen and 3000 Days of Longing.

“When cruising does resume, Port Authority has built a new Welcome Centre in Eden. The new home to cruising for the [far south coast] will support the region’s tourism industry for local arts, crafts and produce to the expected tens of thousands of tourists due to come.’’ Eden became able to take ships up to 325m long after an earlier $44m upgrade to its wharf.

The new Eden Welcome Centre at Port of Eden. Picture: Port Authority NSW

The authority’s Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay, which opened in its original form in 1960, has been given improvements to support the wharf and surrounding seabed: clearing accumulated material from the berthing area and protecting the seawall from future erosion.

The Port Authority will prepare a “detailed business case’’ on increasing what was notoriously tight seasonal capacity for Sydney’s terminals at Circular Quay and White Bay. It will assess two more wharf sites in Yarra Bay near Port Botany, although that has been suspended for a while.

In WA, Fremantle’s heritage-listed passenger terminal is exceptional in being able to take two ships at once.

A Port of Brisbane spokesperson says construction of the Brisbane International Cruise Terminal was completed in October 2020. “It’s ready to begin operations as soon as the government and the cruise lines agree on industry-safe resumption plans,’’ the spokesperson says.

“Until we see the full suite of approved protocols, we can’t predict how operations will be impacted. We’ll work closely with our cruise line partners to ensure all requirements are met.

“The safe resumption of cruising has the potential to deliver much-needed economic activity to regional Queensland port towns. As vaccination rates increase, we hope all stakeholders can come together to establish and implement the protocols required to keep passengers, crew and communities safe, while getting a crucial tourism sector back up and running.’’

Also in Queensland, the Port of Gladstone is “looking forward to welcoming cruise ships back to [the port’s] Auckland Point post the Covid-19 restrictions’’. A viewing platform is being built on Auckland Hill near the cruise terminal that will “capture the beauty of the port city from great heights’’.

The Brisbane International Cruise Terminal is ‘ready to begin operations as soon as the government and the cruise lines agree on industry-safe resumption plans’.

In Hobart, TasPorts says it is “continuing to work closely with the cruise sector during this incredibly challenging period’’. As others have done, TasPorts “has temporarily removed the cruise shipping schedule from its website until such time as there is more certainty around future cruise-ship operations, both nationally and globally’’.

On the eve of the pandemic in Australia, cruising was at its height. In late February 2020, the two largest ships ever to visit Sydney passed in the harbour, the 348m-long Ovation of the Seas and 347m Spectrum of the Seas.

In early March 2020, Ports North’s Port of Cairns welcomed its biggest ship to berth, the 294m Queen Elizabeth, which once would have been forced to drop anchor off Yorkeys Knob, with its 3000 passengers having to climb aboard tenders to access Cairns attractions. This followed a $127m widening and deepening of the shipping channel.

In Adelaide, pre-pandemic, Flinders Ports had only recently refurbished its passenger terminal at Outer Harbor. Among small destinations requiring tender transfer such as SA’s Kangaroo Island, on some P&O itineraries, had 14 ship visits between October 2019 and March 2020.

In the last pre-pandemic full year, 2018-19, there were 1240 cruise ship visits at 47 Australian ports including those requiring anchoring and tender transfer, making 3.8 million passenger and crew visit days across the country.

The annual Australian Cruise Industry Economic Impact Assessment commissioned by Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) and the Australian Cruise Association (ACA), which represents ports and suppliers, reported there were 18,135 full-time jobs supported by the cruise industry across Australia. In NSW, the cruise industry supported 11,517 full-time jobs.

Australians are said to have had the highest market penetration for cruising with about 1.3 million taking part each year. When they are back on board, perhaps if the current rolling ban on foreign-flag cruise ships under the Biosecurity Act actually ends at the next date of December 17, they will face requirements for full vaccination (crew and passengers), P&O Cruises Australia says.

P&O Cruises says the industry has developed “the most stringent health protocols likely to be found anywhere in tourism’’.

It says “these protocols, which are being used in other parts of the world, include 100 per cent testing of all guests and crew (with a negative result required prior to boarding) as well as extensive protocols covering crew quarantine, distancing, sanitation, health monitoring and response procedures’’.

In 2019-20 until cruising ended in March, CLIA says NSW ports had 312 ship-visit days and 1.6 million passenger visits, down from 379 days and 1.9m passengers in 2018-19; Queensland’s ports had 379 days (521 the financial year before) and 583,000 passengers (774,000); WA had 167 days (244) and 136,000 passengers (lower at 127,000); Tasmania had 139 days (134) and 186,000 passengers (204,000); Victoria had 131 days (135) and 302,000 passengers (306,000); SA had 66 days (87) and 106,000 passengers (133,000) and the Northern Territory had 75 days (125) and 49,000 passenger visits (60,000).

Passenger-visit days nationally in 2019-20 were nearly 3m and generated 15,126 jobs directly and indirectly for the nine months sailings were permitted, down from about 3.5m generating 18,135 jobs in full-year 2018-19.

CLIA Australasia managing director Joel Katz says that “in the future we look forward to achieving a solution to Sydney’s infrastructure constraints, while at the same time benefiting from investment in other ports such as Brisbane, Cairns, Broome and Eden, which are improving their ability to welcome cruise ships”.

Katz says about one million people have successfully sailed in countries where cruising has already resumed, including in the US, Europe and parts of Asia.