St. Kitts and Nevis will see a significant increase in cruise passengers during the 2007/2008 when new ships of Royal Caribbean and Celebrity cruise lines begin to visit the island.
Minister of State with responsibility for Tourism, Sports and Culture, Senator the Hon. Richard Skerritt said Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruise Lines (RCI) have confirmed that they will be significantly increasing the number of calls and the size of their ships to St. Kitts starting in October of 2007.
Mr. Skerritt, who recently returned home following meetings with top executives of RCI in Miami, Florida, last week, told the Communications Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister that the significant increase will be felt by the local cruise sector in the 2007/2008 season, when five RCI ships will be deployed to St. Kitts.
He named the ships as the 2020-passenger "Empress of the Seas"; the "Constellation," which carries 2,032 passengers; the 1,870-passenger "Galaxy"; the "Splendour of the Seas," which carries 2,076 passengers and the new Voyager Class super-ship "Explorer of the Seas," which has a capacity to carry 3,840 passengers.
RCI's scheduling of 45 port calls to St. Kitts with those five ships will bring some 103,316 passenger berths.
"This will be a massive increase in cruise passenger traffic from 2007, and is a firm vote of confidence by RCI in the growth
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| Constellation of Celebrity Cruises departing Basseterre. |
direction that St. Kitts'
tourism is taking,", said Minister Skerritt.
He said he is confident that all of the local tourism stakeholders will rise to the challenge of continuing to improve the quality of "our destination's products and services, while undergoing such significant growth."
In the cruise season 2005/2006 which comes to an end this month, St. Kitts had a total of 28 calls from the RCI's "Empress of the Seas" and the Celebrity Cruises "Constellation."
For the upcoming 2006/2007 season which begins in October, RCI/Celebrity will again have 28 calls to St. Kitts, but in addition to the "Empress" and the "Constellation, a third ship, Celebrity Cruises' "Galaxy" will be deployed to St. Kitts.
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| Splendour of the Seas |
This will represent a total of 56,044 passengers to the Federation from these three RCI ships and this figure will almost double just one year later in the 2007/2008 season.
