WESTERN BUREAU – The A’ Rosa Blu, a Seetours cruise ship, made its maiden weekly stop at Montego Bay yesterday to a warm welcome from Jamaica’s tourism officials.

The vessel, with nearly 1,000 passengers aboard, was the second new ship to dock in Montego Bay in the past fortnight, following the recent visit by Carnival Cruise’s Carnival Conquest, which carried over 3,000 tourists.

At a brief ceremony aboard the A’Rosa Blu, attended by Tourism Minister Aloun Assamba and other top tourism officials, the ship’s captain Friedhold Hoppert said he was very pleased to visit the island and gave high marks to the existing port facilities.

“I am quite satisfied about the port facilities,” he said. “From the nautical side it is excellent and also the key facilities. So we are very happy.”

Substantial upgrading work has been taking place at the Montego Bay cruise ship facility in recent years and the harbour has been dredged over the past year to allow it to accommodate larger vessels.

An estimated US$2 million has been spent on the dredging.

At yesterday’s ceremony Assamba thanked Seetours for its decision to call on Jamaica and expressed gratitude to players in the industry who worked very hard to make the visit possible.

It is estimated that the country will earn between US$80 and US$100 million in revenue from the cruise shipping sector by year-end and US$110 million next year.

Last year 870,000 cruise ship passengers visited the island and the figure is expected to increase to about one million this year.