MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands optimistic about cruise passenger season

This season has brought a “significant increase” in cruise passengers according to the Falkland Islands Tourist Board.

General Manager Jake Downing said he expected almost 68,000 cruise passengers to visit the Falklands by the end of the season on April 7. The total at the end of the last tourist season was 62,203. Mr Downing was bullish about the prospects for future seasons. Despite the global economic downturn, he said the cruise ship industry was well placed to weather the storm: "The feeling is that cruise vessels should come out best. "Because cruise vessels are big and getting bigger, the economies of scale are getting better," he said. Director of the Falkland Islands Company Ltd, Roger Spink said he hoped the long-term trend for increasing cruise-ship tourism would outweigh the effects of worldwide recession. He said: "Obviously, at the moment, next year is a long way away. Looking forward, hopefully tourism is growing around the world, but in the economic climate, we're looking forward with guarded optimism." Meanwhile, it was revealed this week that Falklands guidebooks written in Spanish are being rationed by the Tourist Board as demand outstrips supply. Mr Downing said the Spanish language guides were, "going like hot cakes". A total of 5,000 guides were ordered in Spanish for the season, and 38,000 in English. As each cruise ship comes in, only a limited number of Spanish guides are now put on display in the Jetty Centre to ensure that some will be available for each vessel until the end of the season. Mr Downing said a reprint would be prohibitively expensive, and added: "It's a difficult thing to judge - we don't want to waste too many but on the other hand we do want publicity." The Tourist Board is compiling a database of visitor information in order to analyse passenger numbers by language and other variables. Detailed figures should be released next month. (PN).-