Liners to generate €50m for Dublin’s economy next year

By Geoff Percival

Thursday, November 26, 2009

THE cruise liner industry is expected to generate up to €50 million for the Dublin economy next year.

The Dublin Port Company has already lined up 80 liners — carrying a combined 80,000 passengers — to visit the capital in 2010 and this is expected to bring in revenues of anywhere between €35m and €50m to the local economy.

Enda Connellan, chief executive of the Dublin Port Company, said that despite the economic downturn, the port should see another busy cruise line season next year.

"Since 2000, upwards of half a million tourists have visited Dublin on cruise liners; bringing €350m to the city’s tourist economy. This is an additional activity at the port that already handles €35m in trade, supports 4,000 jobs in the port estate and is a key asset to the city and the state in terms of facilitating job-creating trade, as well as generating taxes, rates and dividends," he added.

Since 2000, some 620 liners — carrying upwards of 500,000 passengers and crew — have passed through Dublin Port.

Mr Connellan said that things like the increased business from cruise liners justified the findings of the Department of Transport-commissioned report into the value of the port’s location — which judged that the retention of the port at its current site, with site expansion factored in, "would deliver the highest net present value in cost/benefit terms."

Meanwhile, economist Jim Power noted that Dublin Port’s decision to target a share of the international cruise ship market was a "forward-thinking and progressive step" towards securing the capital’s position as a top destination choice for visitors.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Thursday, November 26, 2009