We Want You: Cruise Lines Open for Business to Help Create Great Destinations By CARLOS TORRES DE NAVARRA, Vice President, Strategic & Commercial Port Development, Carnival Cruise Line, & Chairman, FCCA Operations Committee
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estinations and stakeholders usually focus on how much they want cruise lines’ business, but we want your business just as much. More importantly, we want you as a partner to fulfill our focus of not only what makes a great destination, but what can sustain our business for years and years. Sometimes it’s easier for a destination’s public sector to believe they have enough local businesses that can take care of it, or that their tourism sites will be good enough to sustain their cruise tourism business. But it takes a destination as a whole to develop all of the different elements that will lead to mutual successes. Yes, many passengers visit the Caribbean to enjoy some type of beach or tropical element, but each destination 56 FIRST QUARTER 2018 | TRAVEL & CRUISE
is different. If you look at our ports that we developed as a corporation, we use the natural elements of the destination to create something around it. For instance, Grand Turk has one of the nicest beaches in the world, so we built the pier right off the beach so passengers have this pristine beach to enjoy themselves—with cabanas and a nice place to eat—as soon as they step off the ship. At Amber Cove in Puerto Plata, we worked with the existing tourism element and tour providers to create robust offerings for the guests, along with developing a port that highlights the destination and provides an excellent welcoming experience and shopping, dining and leisure activities steps from the gangway.
What makes Cozumel special is not necessarily that it has a beach at the port, but that it has a great shopping and dining experience steps from the port that provide an entryway into Cozumel’s beaches and destination products. So what makes our ports unique and increases guest satisfaction is using the natural landscape, creating a welcoming entryway with options right off the pier, and providing a very safe and orderly environment where families feel that they can enjoy themselves and not worry about any kind of harassment. This is not a hard model, but when I look at the landscape of ports and destinations out there, I see a need for this focus. Sure, some destinations can succeed independently of any work.
