MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cruise season brings 33.000 visitors to Falklands.

Recently released statistics show that a record number of tourists visited the Falklands during the 2003/4 season. Ten years ago less than 4,000 people went to the Islands, but more awareness of the Falklands excellent wild-life and increased promotion of the destination, resulted in more than 30,000 visitors stepping ashore in the summer of 2003/4.

John Fowler has been Manager of Falkland Islands Tourism since 1996 but will soon leave the position. He was recently interviewed by Sue Gyford, News Editor of the Falkland Islands Broadcasting Station, on the programme ?One to One'.

Gyford: There has been good news including a record number of cruise ship visitors and a growing variety of shore excursions to entertain them and part them from their dollars. But there has also been a serious blow to the industry and that of course is the charter flight ban (imposed by the Argentine Government). With Tourism Manager John Fowler now at the end of his last season in the job I asked him exactly how profound the effect of the ban had been on the Island's tourist industry?

Fowler: It's something that we will see in time I think, and that will largely depend on how quickly we can get out from this ban and resume normal operations. We are in exactly the same situation as we were when the Lan Chile flights stopped because of the Pinochet affair some years back. Not only have we not got charter flights but we cannot guarantee if and when we will have them again. The longer we are in that position of uncertainty the more difficult it is for those ships that would like to do passenger exchanges here to hold on. They have to publish their itineraries and they have to publish their programmes, 18 months in advance of the cruise actually taking place.

Gyford: Has there already been an effect on bookings for next year?

Fowler: I'm fairly sure there has and it will have an effect on revenues this year. Just looking at this season, with the 6 passenger exchanges which did take actually place, we took £5,740 pounds in embarkation tax at the Airport. Two years ago we took £11,940 so that is just the first of many sources of revenue lost.

Gyford: How many actual passenger exchanges (charter flights from Santiago) were lost this season?

Fowler: We lost eleven, and by and large just starting with that quite small proportion of income received, you are looking at about one thousand pounds each charter, and that's before you start looking at landing fees, service charges for cleaning the plane, the opportunity of re-fuelling the aircraft, the transportation of passengers into Stanley, feeding the passengers in Stanley, and the transportation of passengers from the cruise ship back to the Airport ? two series of passenger movements. The opportunities to sell items to the ship, to sell fresh vegetables from Tim Miller's Hydroponic Market Garden or the food he imports (from Chile) ?

Gyford: So the wider impact on the economy. Is there a way of assessing that?

Fowler: There have been various attempts to assess that and my own guess is that it is not going to be much less, and it could be a lot more, than a quarter of a million pounds depending on how far you want to go down the supply chain that each of these events generates.

Gyford: But generally for the next season???

Fowler: It reinforces all the feelings about the Falklands with operators who want to bring clients here. It's been my job for the last few years to try and overcome. It's a difficult place and there is always going to be problems and we have come so close. Before the Pinochet affair which was in 1998, when the flights stopped last time, we were actually building up the passenger exchange business very very well, and we lost all that at one stroke and really the amazing thing is we got it back so soon. If you move your whole operation from one port to another you might expect to be doing that for a minimum of five years but we got all our business back, not necessarily only due to our efforts but due to the relative price of oil here and in Ushuaia, but also I guess to the repeated capacity of our competitors to shoot themselves in the foot by being awkward and doing unexpected and nasty things to their customers.

Gyford: So as far as we know it's basically stalemate at the moment on charter flights, is it?

Fowler: Whatever is going on (talks between British & Argentine authorities), is going on at level far above my head anyway.

Gyford: Apart from that, and moving on to more positive efforts of the season, what have been the highlights of this season?

Fowler: I think from the aspect of cruise vessel visits, this has been a record season. The figures I have at the moment only go as far as the 7th March and at that stage there were still two visits of the ?Amsterdam' to take come which actually took place. One of the good things that happened is that we had less cancellation of big ships than we have had in previous years, but at that time, 7th March , we had had 78 cruise ship visits which had brought 31,926 people into Stanley and this is the first year that we have actually cracked the 30,000.

Gyford: Is that part of a consistent growth?

Fowler: Looking at the 2001/02 season we had 27,230 people visiting, so I guess by the time you count two further visits of the ?Amsterdam' our figure for this year will be about will be about 33,000 or a little more, so that's nearly 6,000 up in two years, which is quite spectacular. There was famous mention from a well-known local character, who I will not name, when I was appointed Tourism Manager in 1996, he wrote to me very kindly to congratulate me, but he mentioned in passing in his letter, the prediction made by Mike Summers (Councillor) that we might see 7,000 passengers this year which was ridiculous and we would never achieve that.

Gyford: And now 8 years down the line ??

Fowler: Now we have 33,000 and that's not counting the crew of course. On a big cruise ship that can be as many as 600 people all of whom are desperate to buy cheaper alcohol than they can get on the ship, and things like Ovaltine and other items that they cannot get on these luxury liners.

Gyford: That's the quantity but in terms of the quality of peoples visit. What feed back have you been getting from the visitors and from the companies?

Fowler: The number of good things about this season is that we have increased our capacity to get people on coaches and give them interesting things to look at and to do. The take up of shore excursions and the variety of shore excursions has been dramatically increased this year and that's really good for two reasons ? one because it gives people a focus for their visit and interprets their visit in a way which wouldn't happen otherwise and also because it's another considerable source of income.

Gyford: So what has been some of the big successes of the new tours and new excursions?

Fowler: I have to mention the Long Island Farm visit which still remains for me as a kind of ideal of how things could be and it's a classic and developmental thing. The road gets to somewhere so you can take people there and suddenly a way of life which was everyday a trip to the people at Long Island, to Neil and Glenda (Watson). You suddenly get a chance to share it with a lot of people for whom it is almost exotic. And the other good thing about it, and it would apply to other visits that take place and more that could be developed, is that it is not a manufactured theatrical event it is an opportunity for people to actually experience and share real peoples lives in a real farming situation. The agency which runs those visits gives all the passengers forms to fill in, to evaluate the visits, and it's amazing how many people have put that this (Long Island farm) was the best visit they have ever been on from a cruise ship, and these are people who presumably have visited many exotic places and seen much more dramatic things on cruises. I think that is the beacon for other people who have things to show and things to demonstrate, interesting places which are now increasingly accessible to Stanley because of roads. Moving on from the cruise ship aspect of things, and we do get accused of ignoring where we all started I guess, which is the land-based side of things, but looking at the land-based side of things we seem to be bumping against a bit of a ceiling. The number of private visitors coming to the Falklands this year was just over one thousand, in fact eleven hundred and two. These are the figures that the Immigration Department release as a result in people filling in forms. So if we try and identify who are the tourists, my prime feeling would be that there are two categories in there - one being the private visitors and the other being the Ministry of Defence families. The Ministry of Defence families is probably the most interesting thing at the moment because that is a figure which is showing considerable growth. In 2002 there were 267 visiting Ministry of Defence families and this year there were 402.

Gyford: Is there any evidence that they actually leave the Military base at Mount Pleasant and spend their money around the Islands?

Fowler: Yes they do. I think they are the people really by and large who represent a considerable growth market. If you are serving in the British Forces then you can get an indulgence flight to the Falklands (from England) for about £48 return fare. The more people who are at the Military base and staying on longer contracts, what they call continuity posts, these tend to be the Senior NCO's, Officers and above, if they can get their families down here for a long weekend for £48 then this is a good market for the lodges and for the self-catering (cottages). If these people are coming all the way from Britain to the Falklands that cheaply, then you really don't want them to spend all their time on the Military base, and they have some disposable cash to spend. That is interesting and encouraging but along with that sadly we have had a reduction in visitor arrivals on the Royal Air Force Tri-Star. In 2002 we had six hundred and twenty three people coming to the Falklands ? private visitors by Tri Star it was down this year to four hundred and fourteen, and although that was matched by a slightly larger increase of people coming in on Lan Chile it does kind of suggest I think that perhaps some of our traditional arrivals who come in groups, specific focus groups with natural history or photography in mind that what we are told about the market is actually happening, that that kind of organized tour is declining a wee bit but there are more people coming independently?.it's part of a larger trend and it's something that perhaps we can do nothing to avoid but we need to be aware of perhaps, people travelling individually or with their partners might have slightly different needs in terms of what they hope to do and how they hope to travel around when they get here. And of course coming in by Lan Chile the chances are that they are staying for a slightly shorter length of time. Being positive also, and it looks very likely as if we are not going to get the second Lan Chile flight (Wednesday as well as Saturday), and I guess that is what I was really leading up to with this talk of bumping against a ceiling, when I came into this job in 1996 we were getting consistently about 200 land based visitors a year and for the last 3-4 years we have been getting consistently, if you add the private visitors and the Ministry of Defence families together, last year we had 1505 people, and this year we have had 1504, and it's been fairly constant at that level. It's been increasing slightly from around 1200 but the big difference between the 200's and the 1500's all has to do with greater access and I think the next big spring forward, which will have generated all sorts of activities and allowed people to cater for more distinct markets, would be the second Lan Chile flight, so it's a huge shame that that seems to be delayed from the development of the tourism point of view. But it does give us an opportunity maybe to put our house in order during a period of consolidation, and there are signs of that happening and two of the really hopeful things I would like to end on are that two of our lodges this season have been under new management ? people who are committing considerable time and their own money in some cases and resources too and taking on those businesses as their own and competitively as opposed to just sitting there and waiting for people to arrive. Port Howard and Pebble Island particularly I think, it's very encouraging the way they have been brought back in line and geed up, with higher expectations that were probably previously visible there.

Gyford: Now it's your last season as Tourism Manager after nearly 8 years ? any reflections?

Fowler: It's been very interesting. The requirement I think for the Tourist Board type of thing is changing. There is still many things to do but when I started the main thrust was trying to talk to specialist tour operators around the world and let them know that we were here, and in some cases that we were still here, and that there was a new opportunity for getting here, albeit very shaky in the days of Aerovias Dap (Magallanes Airline), but that was the big challenge to try and get the increasing numbers of free independent travellers to come here and I think now we have achieved a network of operators who are aware of the Falklands and who are keen to send people here if we have the product and one of my privileges has been going abroad and talking to operators who have been here, and finding how enthusiastic they are about the Falklands as a tourist destination.