Antigua expects cruise ship record
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from October 1989.
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Tourist Department Manager Eddie Hill Thibou, who returned to Antigua this week after a cruise ship promotion campaign in Miami, said that during the winter season on some days there will be as many as six cruise ships in St. John's harbor. "Antigua is still the number one port of call for a number of cruise ships," she said. "We have 14 to 15 cruise lines that will be based in Antigua for the upcoming winter season."
Ms. Hill Thibou said that in January 56 port calls are scheduled in St. John's, including three new ships that will begin making stops at the island. She said the government anticipates 300,000 cruise ship tourists will visit Antigua this season, 40,000 more than the 1988-1989 winter season.
"With the new cruise ship pier coming on stream for the upcoming winter season this is going to ease the congestion at the deepwater harbor and many of the companies have indicated that once the new pier gets going they are going to put on the Antigua route additional ships," Ms. Hill Thibou said.
The new pier is part of a larger tourism development project which includes the recently opened downtown Heritage Quay shopping mall, adjacent to the pier,
where all shops are duty free. She said several seminars were being mounted by the government to prepare taxi drivers for the expected increase in the number of visitors to the island. Antigua and Barbuda, an eastern Caribbean nation of 100,000, is one of the region's most prosperous countries and lives mostly from tourism.
