Island Traffic Jam.... from the Wall Street Journal
By REED ALBERGOTTI and CANDACE JACKSON
February 25, 2006; Page P1

Michelle Kass thought she had found a pretty tranquil spot when she and her husband took a trip to Playa del Carmen on Mexico's Caribbean coast. Then the cruise ships came in.

"It was like a stampede," says the 45-year-old teacher from Neenah, Wis., of the passengers who arrived from the nearby port to shop and eat in the little town center. "We would go have a drink at a bar and wait it out."

One of the brightest spots in the travel industry lately has been the enormous growth in the $15 billion cruise industry, particularly in the Caribbean. But while that's good news for cruise operators, it's also brought oceanic traffic to unprecedented levels in one of the world's premiere leisure destinations. Already busy islands are seeing even more people spilling onto their shores, like Grand Cayman, where nearly 1.8 million cruise passengers disembarked last year -- up more than 700,000 from five years earlier. Places where big ships rarely pulled in are suddenly hectic, with the tiny Central American nation of Belize greeting more than 400 ships in 2004, up from about 70 in 2000. And it's only getting worse, with new megaships in the pipeline that can carry nearly 6,000 passengers at once -- 50% more than today's largest ships.

The number of people sailing to the Bahamas jumped 33% from 2000 to 2005, to 3.35 million a year -- more than 10 times the number of actual residents. Last year, more than 1,000 ships sailed into Cozumel, off the coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, unloading 2.3 million people into an area a quarter of the size of Rhode Island. And on St. Maarten, a mountainous island in the eastern Caribbean ringed by colorful coral reefs, 1.48 million cruisers now visit annually;
that comes to an average of 253 people per square mile every day, up from 148 five years ago.

CARIBBEAN CROWD CONTROL
  
While the overall number of cruise passengers to the region dipped by 2% last year over 2004 because of route changes and a strong hurricane season, new ships rolling out this year are expected to lead to strong  growth this year.

What this means for travelers paying up to $1,300 a night to stay at  some fancy resorts is beaches crowded with flash floods of day-trippers. At the Aruba Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino, the  concierge says guided tours now fill up with the cruise crowd before he has a chance to book the hotel's guests. Traffic on the main road from the port in Grand Cayman to the popular Seven Mile Beach is so  backed up in the early afternoon, guests at the Westin Casuarina Resort & Spa are advised not to travel. And at the $255-a-night Bolongo Beach Resort in St. Thomas, staffers recommend guests stay out of town midweek, when the bulk of the ships call. "You definitely don't want to run any errands on Wednesdays and Thursdays," says Colleen Doumeng, the hotel's sales and marketing director.

It's also a challenge for the cruise lines, who increasingly find themselves looking for new harbors to let their passengers off. "The traditional marquee ports of the Caribbean cannot take all of the  traffic that there is today," says Adam Goldstein, president of Royal Caribbean International, which in recent years has added stops in Belize and Panama. Places like Havana and Cartagena, Colombia, adds Mr. Goldstein, are on the line's radar for future ports, too. The industry's expansion is fueling debate about how much it's helping development in a region almost entirely dependent on tourist dollars.

To help open up Belize, Carnival Cruise Lines is pouring $50 million into a second port. Elsewhere, existing ports are being expanded -- like Scarborough, Tobago, and St. George's, Grenada. And companies are exploring new strategies to take passengers out of the port towns and into less trafficked areas. In Dominica, an aerial tram whizzes visitors through the rainforest.

But it's still possible to escape the throngs. One of the best strategies is to go to a small island that can't handle the big ships -- like Barbuda, just 15 miles long, or Saba, known for its deep-sea diving and wild orchids. For travelers, these places usually require extra travel, via connecting flights on puddle jumpers or boats.

Another strategy is to stay in areas where cruisers don't go. A few miles from the port city of Philipsburg in St. Maarten is the border of the French side of the island, known as St. Martin, which sees no big ships. In Belize, most cruise visitors stay close to Belize City, but towns like Placencia (where Francis Ford Coppola owns a resort), 110 miles away, are less busy.

Cruise ships also tend to steer clear of the more exclusive islands, like Mustique, composed primarily of private villas available for rent. But even exclusivity is no guarantee. With the help of Carnival, Turks and Caicos, a series of islands renowned for their pristine waters and luxury resorts, invested $40 million in a brand-new port to accommodate big ships. Officials say they hope to attract 250,000 passengers this year alone.

For Donald Baumgartner, the cruise crowds on a recent trip to Cozumel, Mexico, were a nuisance. This month, he booked a trip to the tony island of St. Barthélemy, a favorite spot for celebrities (he says he spotted Ivana Trump) and home to fancy French restaurants. The best part: Its ports usually accept only smaller ships and yachts "like the ones you'd see in Monaco," says the Milwaukee manufacturing executive.  "It's way high-end."

Jan White says she wasn't taking any risks when she took her mother on a trip to Antigua last month. She booked a hotel in the secluded northeast part of the island and researched cruise docking schedules online before taking a day trip to the capital city of St. John's, to see which days would have the least cruise-ship traffic. "I wanted to do my research," says the 42-year-old library technician from Ottawa, Ontario.

It's a remarkable transformation for some destinations. While some islands, like St. Thomas, have long been known as cruise hubs, other spots rarely saw a ship bigger than a yacht, much less behemoths like Royal Caribbean's new Freedom of the Seas. That 3,600-passenger ship will set sail for Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Mexico later this year. In recent years, new sailings from ports like Galveston, Texas, and Baltimore have also made cruising to the Caribbean increasingly convenient.

A much-debated topic in the region these days is whether this spike in cruise-passenger visits has real economic benefits. With some islands increasingly dominated by all-inclusive hotels offering everything from golf courses by star designers to giant aquariums to keep guests -- and their dollars -- on the property, officials see the cruise market as an opportunity.

Others say overnight guests are a far bigger economic boon. Pamela C. Richards, the commissioner of the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism, says that overnight visitors spend four times as much as cruise visitors, but each ship that docks brings about $200,000 to $400,000 of "immediate economic impact." Ms. Richards, also chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organization, says she's working on a "conversion" program with countries to try to bring cruise visitors back for longer stays. "We get so many cruise visitors that if even a small percentage come back," it's worth it, she says.

The cruise lines pay docking fees and per-passenger taxes every time they pull up in a port. But many islands offer discounts to woo ships.  Puerto Rico recently introduced an incentive plan that would return to the cruise lines $2.95 for every passenger that pays a tax of $13.25 in the port. And there are added costs: Bonaire adds manpower when the cruise ships are in town to protect tourists from thieves looking to nab scuba gear.

Some local business owners say cruise passengers spend relatively little money during shore excursions, preferring to eat on board or buy just tchotchkes. While ships will often strike deals to funnel passengers to island tour operators, the ships demand reduced rates and the right to handle the bookings, says Allen Chastanet, president of the Hotel and Tourism Association in St. Lucia. "Businesses are happy to comply, but where does it end?" he says. "Every year, they're asked to keep dropping their prices. It's a case of feast or famine."

Cruise companies say they're making bigger investments in the infrastructure on the islands they visit, and signing longer-term contracts that help keep the local economies stable. By taking passengers on lengthier shore trips, cruise lines say, they're exposing them to more and not putting too much pressure on any one area. "We have found a good balance," says Terry Thornton, vice president of marketing and planning for Carnival.

For Pete Condon, beating the crowds meant spending his recent vacation on a tiny archipelago off the coast of Brazil. To get there, he had to take multiple connecting flights within the country. "It had the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen," says the 36-year-old, who works in business development at a biotech company in San Francisco. As for the rumor he heard that a cruise ship might be come to the island soon:  "It's pretty disappointing."

--Jessie Knadler and Jacob Hale Russell contributed to this article.

Hawaii nearing capacity with record number of visitors

Associated Press

February 9, 2006

HONOLULU -- Visitors to Hawaii topped 7 million for the first time last year, and the tourism industry is talking about making the islands a little more exclusive.

An affordable hotel room on Maui, an empty patch of warm sand on Waikiki Beach, a prime tee time on the Big Island -all are becoming more scarce as more tourists flock here in record numbers.

In 2005, the islands welcomed 7,457,297 visitors who spent a record $11.5 billion, according to the latest state figures.

Tourism industry officials, however, warn that Hawaii is at or very close to capacity and are being more selective in attracting those they consider the most desirable tourists.

They're not telling anyone to stay away, but they clearly want more spending without too many more tourists. The visitor count was up 6.7 percent over 2004 when the state just barely missed reaching the 7 million milestone with 6,991,927 visitors.

"Let's put it this way, it's been a good year," said Rex Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

But Hawaii's target market is shifting toward "activity-seeking travelers" - rich people who golf, spend hours in a spa, island-hop and can afford the overpriced snacks inside a hotel room's mini bar.

Barry Wallace, an executive vice president for hotel operator Outrigger Enterprises, said his company, which operates 22 hotels in Hawaii, is becoming more selective in marketing.

"Our initiative has been to focus on targeting the very, very best guests - the ones who will take advantage of activities and other amenities we have to offer," he said. "That's been the focus of our marketing for the last two years, and it certainly will be from this point forward."

Hawaii's hotel occupancy rate last year was 81.2 percent, second only to New York City at 82.9 percent. Los Angeles was third at 74.6 percent, according to Smith Travel Research.

Hotels on Oahu, most of which are located in Waikiki, were 85.6 percent occupied last year. The rate was lower on other islands, where the most lavish rooms fetch several thousand dollars a night. Luxury hotels on Maui, for example, were 76 percent booked at an average room rate of
$319 a night.

"Hotels last year were running as full as they possibly could. There were times in the high season where there was no room at the inn and you couldn't get a room in town," Johnson said. "Given that our capacity is not going to grow by leaps and bounds, we are just about where we're in balance."

Hotel availability is not the only thing that dictates capacity.  Everything from available seats on planes to protecting natural resources also are factors, industry officials said.

Too many visitors may not seem like a problem for a state that depends on tourism like no other in the nation. But it can be.

"If you try to stuff too many visitors into this space we have, you begin to be a detriment to your product," Johnson said.

Service begins to suffer and there will be overcrowding at beaches, parks, airports and already congested roadways. Long lines are already the norm at some popular tourist attractions like the USS Arizona Memorial.

More resources such as law enforcement, electricity and water will also be required on islands that are often already stretched thin.

"If we lose this thing called 'aloha,' we're just like any sand-and-surf destination. I don't believe we can afford to go there," Johnson said.

A look at where the state's advertising dollars are being spent shows exactly who Hawaii wants -- affluent, active and educated travelers.

The Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau, a private agency hired to market Hawaii to North America, launched a marketing campaign last year to lure "activity-seeking tourists" during the slower fall season.

About $1 million was spent on TV ads, including on the Travel Channel and the Food Network with $200,000 used for online advertising at the Discovery Channel, Forbes and The Wall Street Journal.

Another $100,000 was spent on print ads for The Wall Street Journal, which was the only newspaper selected.

"There's great demand to come to Hawaii from North America right now and what we're looking at, as a marketing agent, is attracting people who are going to have a great experience in Hawaii. We're looking for people who will appreciate what Hawaii has to offer," said Jay Talwar, the bureau's vice president of marketing.

On average, one of every 10 people in Hawaii is a tourist. About 1.3 million people live in the state, three quarters on Oahu alone.

"I think we're all cognizant of the fact that we have the most beautiful spot on Earth, but the real draw are the people in Hawaii," Talwar said. "It's the aloha spirit that people feel when they arrive here. We want to do all we can to support that."

Every major Hawaiian island experienced an increase in visitor arrivals last year, with the Big Island leading the way with 16.1 percent, followed by Kauai (6.8 percent), Oahu (6.4 percent), Maui (5 percent), Molokai (3.6 percent) and Lanai (3.3 percent).

Hawaii has successfully marketed itself to the world as a safe yet exotic tropical destination. The state has also benefited from the reluctance of some Americans to travel abroad because of worries about disease, terrorism, natural disasters and the weak U.S. dollar.

Domestic visitors increased 7.4 percent to 5.3 million last year, while international visitors rose 5.2 percent to 2.1 million.

While targeting upscale tourists, tourism officials stress that they are not trying to keep any potential travelers from planning vacations to Hawaii and acknowledge that one natural or manmade disaster could change things in an instant.

"It really is a fragile industry," Johnson said.