The demand and economic, environmental and social impacts of Australian cruise rourism

Published figures on cruise tourism in Australia focus on port visits and passenger spending. The resultant economic impacts have been headlined in tourism and port plans as demonstrating the merit of further infrastructure investment. This paper seeks to review the basis of the economic impact figures. Just how many number cruise passengers are there on Australian cruises and how much do they spend when they get on-shore? A ‘top down’ approach using fifteen years of data is used to project national demand first and then disaggregate the total down by State and port. In this way the projections are kept internally consistent and avoid the problems of ports developing their own forecasts independent of one another. Unlike the US and Europe, embarkation, disembarkation and transit movements in Australian statistics are not distinguished and unlike NZ there is no published figure of ‘unique’ passenger numbers. To fill the gap, 636 individual cruise ship itineraries have been collated, analysed by type of cruise for 2018/19 and used to estimate the number of unique passengers, crew and ships by cruise type and also by port. A review of on-shore passenger and crew expenditure of Australian and overseas estimates is presented that shows Australian Cruise Line Association (ACLA) estimates to be at high end of plausibility. Indeed, when the review estimates were applied instead, total port spending dropped to just a fifth of the ACLA estimate. So as an alternative to off-boat passenger spending figures, an on-board consumer surplus measure is put forward as a way of measuring the benefit to cruise passengers from infrastructure investment. The paper ends by outlining the wider social and environmental impacts of cruise tourism that have been neglected in tourism and port plans. Unlike on-shore spending, the social and environmental impacts of cruise tourism are far more mixed. Air pollution for example is definitely negative. Given this, a passenger tax similar to that levied in Alaska is suggested and for 2018/19, if passengers were taxed at a similar rate of $47 each, an excise revenue of $43 million could be raised.

• Record URL:
  https://atrf.info/papers/2018/index.aspx
• Authors:
  • DOUGLAS, N
  • Ellis, B
  • Frost, T
• Conference:
  • Australasian Transport Research Forum (ATRF), 40th, 2018, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
• Publication Date: 2018-12

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: 43p
• Monograph Title: 40th Australasian Transport Research Forum (ATRF), Darwin, October 30th - November 1st, 2018

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Economic analysis; Forecasting; Passengers; Ports; Tourism; Travel behavior; Travel demand; Water transportation
• Geographic Terms: Australia
• ATRI Terms: Economic analysis; Forecast; Passenger; Port; Sea transport; Tourism; Travel behaviour; Travel demand
• Subject Areas: Economics; Marine Transportation; Passenger Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01696338
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: ARRB
• Files: ITRD, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 26 2019 2:41PM