New survey shows Timaru public welcomes cruise ships

17 May 2024

A newly completed public survey has shown that Timaru District residents continue to support cruise ship arrivals into the region.

Venture Timaru conducted the survey to get feedback from the community about the influx of visitors, following one of the region’s busiest cruise seasons, when 12 ships visited with capacity of more than 18,000 passengers, plus crew.

The overwhelming feedback from the survey was that the community supports the cruise sector coming to Timaru and further, welcomes growth in the sector.

“Among the key positives identified by respondents was how locals enjoyed meeting and chatting to the cruise visitors walking through our CBD and surrounds,” said Venture Timaru operations and destination manager Di Hay.

Of the 144 respondents, 72% had interactions directly with cruise passengers.  Over half of the interactions were as general members of the public, plus 24% were from retail businesses, and 5% from hospitality businesses.  Just over 76% of respondents said they enjoyed having the chance to interact with cruise passengers.

There were a small number of negative comments made, including concern about the overall environmental impact of the cruise sector, but many more positives were identified, such as how the visits added a vibrancy to the CBD, were good for the economy and promoted the district.

“Locals genuinely enjoy the chance to interact with cruise passengers and are quick to offer some help if needed.  Watching the passengers head back on the shuttles to the ship, many had shopping bags from a variety of businesses, so they definitely spent money here,” said Ms Hay.

The survey was circulated through social media channels, newsletters and via newspaper advertisements.

The positive survey result comes as PrimePort Timaru is seeking to grow its share of the national cruise trade by actively promoting the port and Timaru as a destination.  PrimePort recently attended the international cruise trade fair, SeaTrade in Miami, with the aim of establishing direct business relationships with the key cruise lines.

“PrimePort is keen to increase its share of the cruise market and to further diversify PrimePort’s trade mix.  It’s encouraging to hear that the vast majority of the community supports cruise ships calling at Timaru,” said PrimePort chief executive Phil Melhopt.

At this stage bookings for the 2024-2025 overall in New Zealand are slightly down on last season, and this is reflected with Timaru having a small drop in visits, currently sitting at eight ships, with passenger capacity of 6400. However the following season, 2025-2026 shows an increase again, up to 14 ships with higher passenger capacity of over 16,400.

A report on the economic benefit of the 2023-2024 season for Timaru is being prepared by Infometrics and will be released later this year.