There is still hope that St George’s can attract a regular cruise ship in 2016, according to Garth Rothwell, the Mayor of St George’s.

His comments come after Regatta was forced to abandon its trip to St George’s today, and divert to Dockyard instead, because of predicted high winds.

It has been a difficult year for the Olde Towne with just a handful of cruise calls and 2015 does not look much better.

However, Mr Rothwell said that despite there being only two cruise ship stops in St George’s next year, work would continue to try to attract a regular cruise caller for 2016.

He told The Royal Gazette: “It was obviously very disappointing that Regatta was forced to cancel its call to St George’s due to the weather, especially as so much work had been done to make the town ready for her arrival after Hurricane Gonzalo.”

The Mayor added: “You can not underestimate what a boost just one ship brings to the town. It helps all sectors of the community and we are still hopeful that in 2016 we will see more cruise calls in St George’s.

“The recent merger of Norwegian Cruise Lines and Prestige Cruises International has provided us with some hope that we could see more cruise traffic coming through St George’s in 2016.

“Prestige have smaller, more high-end luxury ships that could possibly come into St George’s.

“It’s too late for 2015 but we are hopeful for 2016.

“The ideal situation would be to have one cruise ship with around 1,500 passengers coming into St George’s on a weekly basis.

“We will continue to work with the Bermuda Tourism Authority [BTA] to see if we can make this a reality.”

Recently, Bill Hanbury, chief executive officer for the BTA confirmed that getting cruise ships into St George’s remained a priority.

“The Ministry of Tourism Development and Transport and the Bermuda Tourism Authority have worked closely with the Luxury and Premium cruise lines to deploy their ships to Bermuda,” he said.

“We continue to work with the Ministry to attract more ships to both Hamilton and St George’s, and we are particularly pleased that Holland America Line will once again return to Bermuda in 2015 with the Veendam.