On Tuesday, February 22, following a 2-year hiatus, Port Saint John NB (New Brunswick Canada) announced the return of its cruise shipping sector to the waterfront on May 4, 2022.
The draft schedule totals 69 cruise ship calls, with ships owned by 13 cruise lines scheduled to arrive in Port between May-November.
September and October are the traditionally busy months for cruise ship activity in the region, and 2022 is no exception with ~85% of the cruise ships due to visit after the Labour Day weekend. 10 vessels will call between early May-late August. During the Fall period, there are ten days with double ships and five days with triple ships.
Craig Bell Estabrooks, CEO, Port Saint John, said:
“As we emerge from the pandemic, we are seeing the careful and steady resumption of global travel and tourism, including cruise tourism. The cruise industry has developed some of the most stringent safety and operational protocols, which have been successfully demonstrated since global cruise resumption began in July 2020. For these reasons, we are encouraged and pleased to share with our community that our cruise sector is scheduled to return in 2022. For the past 2 years, our team at Port Saint John and our industry stakeholders have been working closely with federal and provincial authorities on how cruise will resume safely in Canadian port cities, and now it is time to put those plans into action.”
Prior to the COVID crisis, the annual economic impact to New Brunswick from cruise ship activity was ~$68 million per year and provided a total of 398 annualized full and part-time jobs in the province.