One of the brightest spots in the travel industry lately has been the enormous growth in the US$15 billion cruise industry, particularly in the Caribbean.

But while that's good news for cruise operators, it's also brought oceanic traffic to unprecedented levels in one of the world's premiere leisure destinations. Already busy islands are seeing even more people spilling onto their shores, like Grand Cayman, where nearly 1.8 million cruise passengers disembarked last year - up more than 700,000 from five years earlier. Places where big ships rarely pulled in are suddenly hectic, with the tiny Central American nation of Belize greeting more than 400 ships in 2004, up from about 70 in 2000. And it's only getting worse, with new megaships in the pipeline that can carry nearly 6,000 passengers at once - 50 per cent more than today's largest ships.

The number of people sailing to the Bahamas jumped 33 per cent from 2000 to 2005, to 3.35 million a year - more than 10 times the number of actual residents. Last year, more than 1,000 ships sailed into Cozumel, off the coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, unloading 2.3 million people into an area a quarter of the size of Rhode Island. And on St Maarten, a mountainous island in the eastern Caribbean ringed by colourful coral reefs, 1.48 million cruisers now visit annually; that comes to an average of 253 people per square mile every day, up from 148 five years ago.

Caribbean crowd control

While the overall number of cruise passengers to the region dipped by 2 per cent last year over 2004 because of route changes and a strong hurricane season, new ships rolling out this year are expected to lead to strong growth this year.

What this means for travellers paying up to US$1,300 a night to stay at some fancy resorts is beaches crowded with flash floods of day-trippers. At the Aruba Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino, the concierge says guided tours now fill up with the cruise crowd before he has a chance to book the hotel's guests.And at the US$255-a-night Bolongo Beach Resort in St Thomas, staffers recommend guests stay out of town midweek, when the bulk of the ships call.

It's also a challenge for the cruise lines, who increasingly find themselves looking for new harbours to let their passengers off.

"The traditional marquee ports of the Caribbean cannot take all of the traffic that there is today," says Adam Goldstein, president of Royal Caribbean International, which in recent years has added stops in Belize and Panama. Places like Havana and Cartagena, Colombia, adds Goldstein, are on the line's radar for future ports, too. The industry's expansion is fuelling debate about how much it's helping development in a region almost entirely dependent on tourist dollars.

To help open up Belize, Carnival Cruise Lines is pouring US$50 million into a second port. Elsewhere, existing ports are being expanded - like Scarborough, Tobago, and St George's, Grenada. And companies are exploring new strategies to take passengers out of the port towns and into less trafficked areas. In Dominica, an aerial tram whizzes visitors through the rainforest.

But it's still possible to escape the throngs. One of the best strategies is to go to a small island that can't handle the big ships - like Barbuda, just 15 miles long, or Saba, known for its deep-sea diving and wild orchids. For travelers, these places usually require extra travel, via connecting flights on puddle jumpers or boats.
Another strategy is to stay in areas where cruisers don't go. A few miles from the port city of Philipsburg in St Maarten is the border of the French side of the island, known as St Martin, which sees no big ships. In Belize, most cruise visitors stay close to Belize City, but towns like Placencia (where Francis Ford Coppola owns a resort), 110 miles away, are less busy.
Cruise ships also tend to steer clear of the more exclusive islands, like Mustique, composed primarily of private villas available for rent. But even exclusivity is no guarantee. With the help of Carnival, Turks and Caicos, a series of islands renowned for their pristine waters and luxury resorts, invested US$40 million in a brand-new port to accommodate big ships. Officials say they hope to attract 250,000 passengers this year alone.

It's a remarkable transformation for some destinations. While some islands, like St Thomas, have long been known as cruise hubs, other spots rarely saw a ship bigger than a yacht, much less behemoths like Royal Caribbean's new Freedom of the Seas. That 3,600-passenger ship will set sail for Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Mexico later this year. In recent years, new sailings from ports like Galveston, Texas, and Baltimore have also made cruising to the Caribbean increasingly convenient.

A much-debated topic in the region these days is whether this spike in cruise-passenger visits has real economic benefits. With some islands increasingly dominated by all-inclusive hotels offering everything from golf courses by star designers to giant aquariums to keep guests - and their dollars - on the property, officials see the cruise market as an opportunity.

Others say overnight guests are a far bigger economic boon. Pamela C Richards, the commissioner of the US Virgin Islands Department of Tourism, says that overnight visitors spend four times as much as cruise visitors, but each ship that docks brings about $200,000 to $400,000 of "immediate economic impact."

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal

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