
| 'Pride of Aloha' Cruise Ship to Leave Hawaii |
|
|
| Written by Tina Chau - tchau@kgmb9.com | |||
| February 12, 2008 02:32 AM | |||
|
When the Pride of Aloha bids aloha to Hawaii on May 11 for Asia, it'll take with it 850 jobs. This news comes a week after the Pride of Hawaii left for Europe taking with it more than 1000 local jobs. Norweigan Cruiseline (NCL) blames competition from foreign ships from the west coast. "Since 2004, if you look at the government statistics, the maritime administration, they've seen an increase of about 430 percent in foreign vessel capacity that they brought into the Hawaii market since we've been here," said Alan Yamamoto, VP of Hawaii operations for NCL. Gone are the days when most visitors traveled Hawaii by ship instead of airplanes. Last year the state said cruise passengers spent nearly $823 million in Hawaii. The Pride of Aloha and Hawaii made up 80 percent of that. The state is disappointed to lose the money but said it's a market correction. "You can only grow a market so fast and they (NCL) grew it really fast, from the first ship with Aloha and then a second ship the next year and another ship. We basically had 6000 rooms in our market place in three years," said Marsha Weinert, the state's tourism liaison. KGMB9's business reporter Howard Dicus believes vendors across the state will suffer. "Here at Aloha Tower Market place, a lot of stores had trouble due to parking for locals until NCL starting bringing in a lot more visitors, and now there will be fewer," said Dicus. "Over on Maui, a lot of farmers sell vast amount sof food and provision to NCL, which obviously won't be needing quite as much now and they are going to try to make that up" he continued. |
|||
| Last Updated ( February 15, 2008 04:01 AM ) | |||
Subscribe to receive 9 Online by Email
Delivered by FeedBurner!
Subscribe to receive 9 Online by Email
Delivered by FeedBurner!





