Local officials in Mobile, Alabama were “shocked” when Carnival Cruise Lines announced it was pulling the Elation from the port and moving it to New Orleans. Carnival at this point hasn’t made any plans to pull the Fantasy out of Charleston, but local groups are putting strain on the line and they may reconsider.
The Carnival Fantasy started docking in Charleston in May of 2010 – the only year-round cruise ship for the port.
Since then, there have been several sources of resistance:
National Trust for Historic Preservation
We know it’s important to preserve important sites in the U.S. that may otherwise not be if it weren’t for this group. However, the NTHP put Charleston on it’s “watch list” at the same time it released its 2011 most endangered sites, and blamed the cruise industry for the rating on the city.
The NTHP says:
In the case of Charleston, expanding cruise ship tourism could jeopardize the historic character of the city, historic downtown Charleston and its surrounding neighborhoods.
Since the cruise ships can’t park in downtown Charleston or “its surrounding neighborhoods,” it’s safe to say the NTHP is worried about an influx of people, and what that would mean for the city.
Other motivations appear to be at play (environmental? anti-cruise industry?) since the cruise industry currently only accounts for under 4% of the city’s 4.4 million annual visitors.
If the NTHP is truly concerned about the number of visitors to the city, perhaps they should be looking at all industries – but regulating 4% of visitors brought in by a single industry is the obvious work of special interests.
Southern Environmental Law Center
With anti-cruise industry mentality growing from the NTHP, the Southern Environmental Law Center decided to strike while the iron is hot by filing a lawsuit saying that the cruise lines aren’t operating within local zoning ordinances, causing traffic problems, and violating state environmental laws.
“Charleston relies on a careful balance between tourism and preservation that cruise ship interests shouldn’t overwhelm,” says Blan Holman, an attorney from the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Local Government
The mayor of Charleston says the lawsuit against Carnival is “bogus” and “rogue,” and cites the fact that cruise traffic is minimal compared to the cities annual tourism figures.
The chairman of the South Carolina Sate port Authority is calling the lawsuit “irresponsible.”
“Their goal is to cripple our port system to satisfy their anti-growth agenda. First it’s cruise ships, then cargo ships. Next it will be trucks and rails. They don’t seem to care that their agenda would irreparably damage economic development and kill jobs all across South Carolina.”
Mobile and Charleston
The local officials get it in Charleston, but it may not matter what they think in the end. Any port operator will tell you that vying to be a home port for a cruise ship is extremely competitive – especially with newer markets opening up and the ability for cruise lines to pack-up and move operations with relative ease.
When special interest groups force cruise ships into lawsuits that even the mayor thinks are bogus, they can increase a cruise line’s cost of operating in that port by millions of dollars.
One of the big reasons Carnival pulled out of Mobile, Alabama was they couldn’t raise profit enough to offset local environmental laws that are set to be in place by 2012, and calculated the ship would be more profitable in nearby New Orleans.
If Carnival decides its not worth the added cost and headache to do business in Charleston, we hope the local officials aren’t “shocked” – because the writing is on the wall today.