Announcement of tourism and transport plan delayed four weeks
A “groundbreaking” tourism and transport plan scheduled to be revealed yesterday has been delayed for another month, the Minister of Transport said.
Lawrence Scott explained that “unforeseen circumstances” had pushed back the announcement of several major projects.
He said: “We anticipate making the groundbreaking announcement sometime in the beginning of April.
“It will involve every aspect of the ministry’s remit – so it will involve air, sea and land transportation.”
But he said that he could not give any more details – but added that the “harmonisation” of Bermuda’s cruise and air industries was planned for this year.
He said: “This will require us to work with our cruise line partners for opportunities to establish Bermuda as a home port in the interest of revitalising tourism activity and the economy.”
Mr Scott was speaking as he discussed the details of the Ministry of Transport’s budget for the next financial year.
Mr Scott added that he was confident the island had the health resources to monitor a major influx of cruise ship passengers.
He said that many airlines and cruise ships expected people to be vaccinated against Covid-19 before travel.
Mr Scott added: “The Premier has mentioned that the industry is looking at electronic vaccination passports.
“When a cruise does come in they are projecting 50 per cent load factors, so therefore the 10,000 people that we normally get during our cruise season per week – or even in one day – will be half of that.
“Since we have the infrastructure to handle 10,000 people on any given day at our cruise ports we definitely have the ability to handle 5,000.”
Mr Scott told The Royal Gazette last month that the ministry was in talks with several cruise lines about how to reshape Bermuda’s image.
He said that the plan would go beyond cruise lines and take in other sectors of tourism and transport.
Mr Scott added that the developments would deliver opportunities for Bermudian entrepreneurs as the Government worked to reboot the economy in the wake of the pandemic.
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