How Bantry aims to grasp a €2.5m cruise tourism opportunity
The Malta cruise liner Silver Spirit, and Bahamas Cruise Liner Europa, with a total of 1,500 passengers and crew on board in Bantry Bay in 2024. Bantry Bay Port Co plans to bring 25,000 passengers annually. Picture: Evan Doak
Bantry Bay has always had a reputation as a place of shelter for seafarers, going back centuries; a safe harbour from stormy seas.
Even in the days of the revolutionary wars, Bantry’s sheltered harbour was the refuge where the remnants of Wolfe Tone’s ill-fated invasion fleet sought refuge. The town's square is named after the patriot.
Wolfe Tone’s invasion fleet was 15,000 strong. The Bantry Bay Port Company, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Port of Cork, has its own ambitious plans for an invasion: it plans to bring in 25,000 cruise visitors every year, worth an estimated €2.5m.
“We've set target over the next three years to bring up to 30 vessel calls a year, and about 25,000 passengers annually. We’re confident we can reach that. Bantry has huge potential,” said Conor Mowlds, chief commercial officer with the Port of Cork and chairman of industry representative body Cruise Ireland.
“At Cruise Ireland, we sell the island of Ireland as a destination, and then we sell Cork and Bantry as a pair. The transit times between Cork and Bantry are good, so it means that the vessels that are calling to Cork can do a full day in Cork, sail in the evening time, and then be in Bantry for another full day. That's why Cork and Bantry work so well together for itinerary planners.”
Last year, 22 cruise ships with 9,276 passengers stopped off in Bantry – an exceptionally high number, and a signal of the town’s potential. Each passenger has an estimated spend on arrival of €100 while crew member spend is estimated at €30.
In order to develop the cruise business in Bantry, Bantry Bay Port Company and the Port of Cork are looking to replicate the success of the cruise business enjoyed on the other side of the county, in Cobh in East Cork.
In 1991, some 9,552 passengers visited Cobh on cruise ships, a figure not dissimilar to the 2024 figure for Bantry. Last year, 197,000 passengers visited Cobh, an increase of almost 2,000%.
“Cobh was seen as an industrial town, a garrison town, 20 years ago. It's now seen as a tourist driven town, and that is significantly driven by the cruise vessels that come to Cobh,” said Mr Mowlds.
He said the business community in Cobh, in tandem with the local authorities, grasped the opportunity offered by the cruise business in the 21st century.
“In the earlier stages of cruising in Cobh, passengers would leave as soon as they arrived. They would get on buses and go to Blarney Castle and would rarely venture around the old town. But local businesses and the local authorities have adapted their model.”
Town attractions like the Titanic museum, the Queenstown story exhibition, Spike Island, and showcasing the town’s impressive Cathedral now give plenty of reason to stay around.
One of the other shipping industries associated with Bantry is oil. Disaster struck when the tanker Betelgeuse exploded at the offshore jetty there in 1979, leaving 50 people dead, a tragedy which resonates locally to this day. Though never forgotten, the industry rebuilt at Whiddy, and these days island’s deepwater facility has a capacity of eight million barrels of oil and is the home of Ireland’s strategic petroleum reserve.
In 2024, three tankers were listed as arriving in Bantry’s port. But the Bantry Bay Port Co is looking to the long-term future. “The tankers are a steady business that the port company, was built around, and it will be there for a long time. The national oil reserve is on Whiddy, so you'll always have activity there. But it's a fossil fuel activity, and we can't rely on that into the future,” said Mr Mowlds.
“We need to develop a more sustainable business model, and while we'll obviously service our fossil fuel business, we need to look in different areas. That's why offshore wind, for example, and cruise in particular, are our focus of the Bantry Bay port.”
The business community in Bantry is already on alert to the possibilities offered by cruise tourism. On Thursday, members of the Bantry Business Assocation held a business breakfast at the Maritime Hotel, and listened to a presentation from Conor Mowlds discussing the potential for development in the harbour.
There was quite the storm in some quarters in Bantry last month, when the costs of a new tourist gateway structure in the town’s square came up for discussion. The gateway – also called the sign, or the portal – has been a source of heated debate over its €95,000 cost, along with a series of 22 tourist signage points around the town adding up to more than half of million euro. It is hoped those signs could show their worth with the planned influx of visitors from cruise tourism.
In October, Bantry found itself again in recovery mode after a storm battering, when flood waters caused millions of euro worth of damage. Long-term, a culvert scheme requiring significant works will need to be undertaken to prevent reoccurence.
The town’s restaurants have, like so many nationwide, felt the strain of increased costs and squeezed margins. In January, West restaurant run by former town councillor Chris Heinhold closed its doors for the last time. Another restaurant Yum Yum closed in November, whilst the iconic O’Connors Seafood restaurant closed in September.
But businesses in the town are pushing the positives of a place which is already the envy of many like-sized towns. A new restaurant Wild Garlic at Fadó, opened this week, run by Pat and Ann Marie Kiely, who themselves ran O’Connors until 2019. Bantry is already established as a tourism centre in the south-west.
The three international festivals run by West Cork Music — the Chamber Festival, Masters of Tradition Festival, and the Literary Festival — were worth €5.5m to the local economy in 2024, up 45% on 2023, and bringing in 5,500 visitors. A new international music centre is also in the planning, with a design created by dRMM architects.
Separately from the cruise business, Bantry’s marine community has been actively pushing forward with plans for marine and watersports facilities. Bantry is already a centre of sailing and maritime pursuits, from the busy sailing club to the Atlantic Challenge Bantry Bay gigs.
Bringing the many facets together will be the planned Bantry Marine Activity Centre, located beyond the Abbey in the west of the town, which has been in the pipeline for close to a decade, but has made significant steps towards becoming a reality in recent months. A maritime area consent (MAC) application was submitted in December, the first step in the planning application process. The new facility will include boat sheds, slipways, pontoons, meeting rooms, food spaces and changing facilities.
Cruise itineraries are made as much as two years in advance. In September, Cruise Ireland is bringing industry representatives to Bantry — as well as Derry, Dun Laoghaire, Waterford, Cobh, and Galway — to highlight the port’s potential for cruising, particularly for the lucrative US market.
The port company has already invested €9m in Bantry inner harbour in the past eight years, including a leisure marina, the widening of the town pier, dredging of the inner harbour and the creation of an amenity space at the foreshore.
In the long-term, further infrastructural development can come with increased cruise tourism. “We have to generate the revenue to do it. The next three years are going to be crucial,” said Mr Mowlds.
“We need to be in a position whereby we can build up the business to such a degree that we’re talking about new infrastructure business all the time. We're nowhere near paying back the investment we've made so far, but we're ambitious.”
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