TERMINAL Manager for the Ocho Rios Cruise Ship Pier, Dennis Richards says he is expecting high cruise ship passenger arrivals this winter tourist season, with some 170,000 visitors expected to arrive by January 2006.

While not expecting the record 91,000 arrivals of last December, Richards said he expected that more than 80,000 visitors would arrive by the end of this month, adding that another 90,000 were expected to arrive in January.

According to Richards, the Ocho Rios cruise sector was 'badly' affected by the hurricanes, but had fully recovered, and the arrivals for October and November, had surpassed those for the same period last year.

Citing figures, he said that arrivals for October were 50,000 over 40,000 for October of 2004, while "in November 2004, we had 70,000 cruise ship passengers and this year we had a total of 75,000".

Meanwhile, Richards said that at least one cruise ship would be arriving at the Ocho Rios pier every day up to the end of this year, and into January 2006.

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