Cruise Ship-Caribbean (foto pixabay)

By Frank Martin.

“Cruisers ships are a strong link in international tourism” is a concept that has been confirmed with the massive expert’s participation at a regional international conference on that theme in the Dominican Republic, attended by 500 personalities from 40 countries.

The 28th edition of the FCCA conference, which took place from Tuesday the 11th to last Friday the 14th of this October at the Renaissance Santo Domingo Jaragua Hotel & Casino, also received 14 delegates of shipping companies from the 23 members that make up the group, and more than 60 cruise executives, including presidents, CEOs and platinum members.

It was an occasion for private meetings with cruise lines, discussion panels on the industry and a pleasant fixed space or Marketplace, destined for exhibitions of artisanal products and gastronomy.

The organizer, the FCCA, the Florida and Caribbean Cruise Association is a trade organization of 22 affiliated Cruise Companies that operate more than a hundred large ships or floating hotels.

The entity is made up of government authorities, ports, tour operators and other organizers of the activity. FCCA governs a good part of the trips of these monumental pleasure boats.

In global terms, in 2019, the world cruise industry created 1,166,000 jobs, which is equivalent to 50.53 billion dollars in salaries and 154.5 billion dollars of total production on the planet.

During that year, the last one before the coronavirus pandemic, cruise ships transported some 30 million passengers to the most beautiful and interesting corners of the world.

That was a 6% increase compared to the 28.2 million it moved in 2018.

Among the issues discussed at last week’s summit in the Dominican Republic was the regional return to prosperity, badly damaged by Covid-19 due to mandatory lockdowns, various health restrictions and the consequent shortage of customers.

It has also been a sector that reacted with intelligent response measures to the situation, which allowed it to resume operations with more than 7.5 million passengers.

A generally accepted estimate in the Dominican meeting was that the full prosperity of this tourism branch will return by the end of 2023.

The most optimistic analyzes affirm that at that time the results of 2019 could be exceeded by more than 12% in planetary terms.

The chosen venue of the Dominican Republic was appropriate.

Between January and September, that country received 800,000 cruise passengers and ship crew members.

The Dominican Minister of Tourism, David Collado, said during the conference that the cruise industry “has to rise stronger than ever and has an ally in the Dominican Republic to achieve it.”