New service targets cruise ship crews
Photo/David A. Rodgers
Patrick Arnold, executive director of Discover Portland and Beyond, in front of a cruise ship docked on Portland's waterfront
A new cruise ship marketing initiative in Portland is under way, designed to boost the industry’s economic impact in the area and serve an oft-forgotten segment of the cruise ship sector — the crew members.
Representatives from the city of Portland, the Greater Portland Convention and Visitors Bureau, and cruise ship marketing group Discover Portland and Beyond have teamed up with local businesses this season to offer a shuttle service just for cruise ship crew members. The shuttle, provided by VIP Tours and Charters Bus Co. of Portland, brings crew members to the Maine Mall any time a cruise ship with more than 1,000 passengers arrives in port. For $5, crew members can hop on one of two shuttle buses every half hour and head to the South Portland mall to shop for clothes, shoes and electronics, grab some lunch or get a haircut. “It’s a one-stop shop for all their necessities,” says Patrick Arnold, executive director of Discover Portland and Beyond, and business development and marketing manager for the Maine Port Authority.
Reports detailing the economic impact of Maine’s cruise ship industry track passenger spending but, for time and logistical reasons, don’t chart the spending of the crew members. “When people think of cruise ships, the first thing they think about is the passengers,” says Todd Gabe, an economics professor at the University of Maine and co-author of the university’s recent cruise ship study. “They don’t necessarily think of the crew members.”
Those studies could be missing out. Most cruise ships have about one crew member for every two passengers, meaning a 3,000-passenger ship has a crew of nearly 1,500 people eager to do some shopping of their own, says Arnold, who has witnessed crew members and staff who oversee the crew welfare department returning to the ship with laptops, 50-inch flat-screen TVs and hundreds of DVDs. “It’s an open market, a huge amount of people overlooked.”
The port of Portland is unique among Northeastern U.S. and Canadian ports for its proximity to a major shopping hub, says Arnold, giving it a competitive edge for luring cruise ship lines. But it’s a “real advantage that hasn’t been capitalized on,” he says. The shuttle service began Sept. 5 with the arrival of the 3,114-passenger Explorer of the Seas, and as of press time had run for four days, attracting about 200-300 crew members each day.
By catering to cruise ship crews, the organizations involved hope to not only spur spending, but enhance Portland’s marketability to future cruise lines, according to Arnold. “The initial goal is to provide a service for the crew that will look good to the cruise lines.”
Reaching out to crews
The city has organized a crew members-only shuttle service for the past two years but it “wasn’t an organized effort,” says Sandra Needham, director of cruise ship marketing for the port of Portland. To change that, Needham reached out to Arnold, and together they approached the Maine Mall, which agreed to sponsor the shuttle to offset the cost. “It certainly seemed like a program we would want to help support,” says Craig Gorris, general manager of the Maine Mall. Mall stores are also offering crew members the mall’s employee discount. Needham has reached out to the major cruise ships docking in Portland this year alerting them to the service, and “all the major lines jumped on it,” she says.
While tourists arriving in Portland via cruise ships are most interested in browsing the shops and restaurants of the Old Port and nearby Kennebunk and Freeport, crew members are looking for an easily accessible place to get their needs met. On a recent port of call, the first two buses of the mall shuttle filled in minutes with about 100 crew members from the 1,462-passenger Norwegian Majesty and the 1,870-passenger MV Aurora. At the mall, many sought out Best Buy, browsing for phones, cameras, iPods and video games. Others shopped at Foot Locker, GNC and hat store Lids, or used the mall’s pay phones.
Daniela Tanasie of Romania, a crew member on the Norwegian Majesty, hopped the shuttle in hopes of buying “nice clothing” to send home to friends and family, like many others do, she says. “And you have to spoil yourself a little bit,” she says. “It’s like therapy. You go out and spend some of the money you’re working for.”
Electronics are the most popular purchase, says Arnold, since they tend to be less expensive here than the crew members’ home countries, and help pass the time during the 10 months crew members usually spend on the ship. Clothing and shoes are second, and service-based businesses like salons and eateries rank third, he says.
While there isn’t any hard data on how much money is generated by crew spending, Arnold guesses the average person spends anywhere from $30 to $100, not including big-ticket items like TVs and laptops. Arnold and the others involved hope that 30%-60% of crew members will use the shuttle service this season. And with more than 20,000 crew members scheduled to arrive in Portland this season, that could mean potential spending in the hundreds of thousands.
After this season, Needham and Arnold plan to gather some definitive data on what and how much crew members bought, as well as get feedback from the cruise lines on how the service could be improved for next year. And UMaine economist Gabe says he and report co-author James McConnon are mulling the logistics of surveying crew members on their spending in the future.
Though shuttle organizers are calling this year a trial run, so far they are optimistic about the outcome. “Our vision is to tap into the market as best as we can,” says Needham. “Hopefully we’ll be spreading the wealth for this community.”
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