Council plans marketing agency to help attract cruise liners

Cork County Council is to establish an agency which it hopes will bring more cruise liners into West Cork.

The council is acting on a report it commissioned from consultant Sean Geary, a former deputy chief executive of the Port of Cork, which showed the region could benefit significantly from chasing cruise line firms.

Mr Geary said 48 cruise ships had dropped anchor in Bantry Bay in the past 10 years and he estimated that was worth €1m to the local economy. He said while ships traditionally came into Bantry, they had occasionally anchored off Castletownbere, Baltimore and Schull.

Mr Geary said the only drawback to encouraging more visits was the lack of proper liner berthing facilities in the region.

Ships have to anchor off the coast and bring in passengers on tenders for shore excursions.

Mr Geary said cruise liners were increasingly looking for good shore excursion packages as they could make money on them and he earnestly believed the region could offer an attractive variety of them.

He carried out a test survey amongst passengers who took shore excursions to Glengarriff and found a significant number liked what they encountered.

He said other surveys around the world had shown that cruise passengers who liked an area often returned to it in later years.

The consultant made 15 recommendations to the council aimed at capturing more cruise line traffic, including the setting up of a new marketing arm, known as Cruise Bantry Bay, because cruise lines would already identify with the Bantry name.

He said in the long term, the local authority would have to look at improving facilities at its smaller harbours, which could be paid for by the council itself, West Cork Partnership and Fáilte Ireland.

County manager Martin Riordan said the council was anxious to grow all forms of tourism and said he liked the idea of setting up a test marketing campaign amongst cruise lines.

“It’s a worthwhile document and it’s important that we move forward to implement it. We will look at cost-effective steps as tourism in West Cork is vital to our economic development.”

Cllr Christopher O’Sullivan (FF) said there was “massive potential” if the region could tap into more cruise line business.

According to Cllr Pat Murphy (FF) agreement had already been reached to improve docking facilities at Glengarriff, while Cllr Mary Hegarty (FG) said the region’s good food and music could provide excellent shore excursion packages.