| Royal
Caribbean plan will boost Norfolk’s cruise
industry
Virginia Business
June 2006 Norfolk’s National Maritime Center won’t
open until next spring, but it already has a much-appreciated
tenant.
The Empress of the Seas, a 692-foot-long, 2,000-passenger cruise ship owned by
Royal Caribbean International, will use the terminal as a home port for 15 seven-day
trips to Bermuda beginning in April 2007.
The announcement brings Norfolk’s cruise industry full circle. Royal Caribbean,
which operates 18 cruise ships, ran a regular cruise to Bermuda out of Norfolk
for many years, but the company pulled out a few years ago when it sold the ship
it was using for those cruises. Other cruise line companies, for various reasons,
left as well. At present, Carnival Curise Lines is Norfolk’s only cruise
operator, offering cruises in June and October to the Bahamas.
Rich Conti, executive director of the
National Maritime Center, thinks that Royal Caribbean’s return will mark a turning point for the city as a port for
cruises. City officials worked for several years to arrange a regular schedule
to Bermuda. Norfolk sent its mayor and city manager to the island and hosted
Bermuda’s tourism minister and other government officials last year.
“I think they really like us here in Virginia since we’ve got so
much of a shared history,” Conti says. He notes that the possibility
exists for packaging a cruise with tours of historic areas in Bermuda and Virginia,
such as Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg.
Conti estimates that the passengers on the Carnival and the Royal Caribbean cruises
will generate $5 million for the local economy.
Norfolk doesn’t expect to compete with New York, Miami or Fort Lauderdale
as a cruise ship capital. The National Maritime Center will have only one berth.
“It’s just nice to have our first partner coming into the new facility,” Conti
says. “We felt very strongly about our market because we had this strategic
advantage with Bermuda, so to have Royal Caribbean come in and homeport a ship
validates our beliefs. This definitely comes at a good time.”
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