Last week CND told readers how port cities often forget that just because a cruise line operates from their city now, it doesn't mean they always will. Unlike hotels or other land-based businesses, cruise ships are very portable assets of the industry.
Today the city of Rockland, Maine, is providing a classic illustration of how that forgetfulness works. The city is just beginning to have large ships call at the port and is deciding they want to limit the number. Instead of just issuing permits which would limit the number, they have decided to drastically increase head taxes and other fees somehow thinking this will discourage new ships from calling but forgetting that the lines which are now calling there won't be any too thrilled either. As we point out in the article, Alaska residents didn't think cruise lines would take ships out of their state as the result of new taxes and fees, and they now are famously wrong.
The complete article appeared in the June 21, 2010, edition of Cruise News Daily.
