Next year could be a record setter for cruise ship visits with more than 200 calls potentially on the books.

Lawrence Scott, the Minister of Transport, said that the Government would soon publish the first draft of the 2023 cruise ship schedule, which could feature as many as 222 calls.

Mr Scott said the figure was a “testament to Bermuda’s relationship with our cruise line partners”.

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“Now that Bermuda has opened up with Covid-19 testing ending as of October 25, Bermuda is even more attractive and the forecast 2023 cruise ship numbers speak for themselves,” he said.

“January 2023 has eight calls, February has three calls, and March has 13 calls scheduled. Bermuda has done a stellar job this year thanks to all of our stakeholders and their tireless work.”

Mr Scott told The Royal Gazette that even with an average number of cancellations – about ten or 15 per year – the 2023 season would be a record breaker.

“That would still put us over 200,” he said. “Up until now, we have barely seen more than 180.”

He added that while no ships were scheduled to home port in Bermuda in 2023, that is expected to change for the 2024 season.

“I believe we have one home porting in the books for 2024, that’s Ritz Carlton, and that is something we are really excited about,” he said. “We are really hoping that 2024 will be the reintroduction of home porting and we will start to see growth in the segment going forward.

“We are starting to see a niche market appearing where while ships have gotten bigger and bigger, there is a market of smaller luxury boutique ships, so we might be able to start attracting smaller ships that can fit in Hamilton and St George’s.”

In 2018, 180 cruise ship visits were scheduled, and 193 were scheduled in 2019, although due to cancellations the number of actual visits recorded were 171 and 184 respectively.

It was expected that 2020 would be a banner year for cruise ship visits with 196 calls on the schedule, but the global pandemic devastated the industry, resulting in only four of the calls coming to fruition.

Meanwhile, 179 visits were scheduled last year, with only 36 recorded.

This year, 181 cruise visits were originally anticipated to take place, according to a draft schedule published late last year.

Mr Scott said that it is now expected the island will have 166 visits with 15 visits having been cancelled – eight due to Covid-19 testing policies, six due to weather and one because of the sale of the Viking Sun.

The minister said that Bermuda had already welcomed 310,587 cruise ship passengers this year, injecting an estimated $131.5 million into the local economy.

He said the estimate showed a $28.2 million increase from preseason estimates.

“As of October 5, there were 39 more calls in the fourth quarter period, estimated to bring an estimated 63,778 passengers to Bermuda by the end of the year,” Mr Scott added.

He said that with the scheduled visits for the rest of the year taken into account, it was estimated that cruise ships would generate about $158.1 million in economic benefit this year – $53.1 million more than original projections.

“New survey data collected by the Bermuda Tourism Authority on cruise ship passenger spending shows an increase from $225 per person to $262 per person,” Mr Scott said.

He said he believed the increase was linked to a growing number of entrepreneurs offering products and experiences for cruise ship visitors rather than an increase in costs on the island.

“I also think the on-island spending in these statistics is conservative,” Mr Scott added. “I think they spend more than that, and it’s because it’s about experience.

“Our entrepreneurs in the hospitality industry, our public service vehicle owners and operators are giving our customers that experience and so they are willing to spend more on those experiences and do more.”

• UPDATE: This article has been updated with additional comments from the Minister of Transport.