WESTERN BUREAU:
HAVING, FOR the past two years, pulled most of their vessels out of Montego Bay because of passenger dissatisfaction with the city, cruise officials are now hinting at a full scale return of their ships.
Michelle Paige, executive director of the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA), noted that the number of ships going to Montego Bay were scaled down because of the town's failure to meet certain standards required by cruise officials.
She cited the lack of proper infrastructure and the persistent problem of tourist harassment as two of the major deterrents.
However, during a visit to Jamaica, she told The Gleaner that things in Montego Bay had improved "significantly" since her last couple of visits to the town and was optimistic that the city would find favour with other cruise line officials.
"Things are looking quite good," Ms. Paige said. "However, I would like to see them get even better as we do have a lot of plans for this city."
The FCCA executive director noted that over 50 new crew ships are now being built from which as much as 32 could be coming to Montego Bay.
She, however, cautioned against complacency, saying that the city needs to ferret out different ways of improving its tourism offering to cruise ship passengers.
"There is a need to find out what these passengers want in terms of shopping items, and try to provide these," Ms. Paige said. "A happy passenger will probably come back as a stop-over visitor."
She added that the city's cruise shipping interests needs to work with the government in terms of putting in incentive packages for cruise ship passengers and that an environment had to be created where visitors feel safer walking the streets.
"People should know that that the police will be there to provide assistance if needed," she continued. "We would also like to see some of the attractions being more visitor-friendly. Some of them also needs to be refurbished."
Ms. Paige noted that Montego Bay needed to have its own identity and that the city should desist from operating in the shadows of attractions such as Dunn's River Falls.
President of the Montego Bay Cruise Shipping Council, Lee Bailey, in welcoming the news of the possibility of the city getting more cruise vessels, said that the country on a whole had to do more in terms of being environment-friendly.
"There is no doubt that Jamaica is the prettiest island in the Caribbean but it is certainly far from being the cleanest," he noted.
Mr. Bailey also stated that that the city had to be ready for the many new ships that should be calling between now and the year 2002 and added that a lot of work had to be done. "The bottom line is that we need proper infrastructure to accommodate and welcome these vessels," Mr. Bailey said.
"I am confident that the Jamaican people will do their part, but what we need is the response from the public sector to recognise that tourism in any form can only exist with proper infrastructure."
Mr. Bailey said that the people of Montego Bay had become more friendly towards visitors and that they had finally realised that their backs were against the wall.
"The people in this town have learned their lesson," he continued. "We will do everything in our power to make our visitors happy."
