BC/British Columbia (Canada) is ending cruise season 2022 with a near-record number of ships and passengers.
The achievement is more remarkable when you consider, according to the government’s critics and the cruise industry itself, the sector in the province was supposed to be a smoldering apocalyptic ruin.
It was just 18 months ago that cruise shipping companies, Opposition BC Liberals, and Alaska politicians, collectively warned that BC’s $3 billion annual cruise sector had been irrecoverably harmed because of the incompetent bungling of John Horgan (Premier) and Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister).
According to them, the provincial and federal governments had been too strict with their COVID protocols by failing to meet the demands of the US government to open Canadian ports so American liners could meet legal requirements to dock in a foreign cruise port on their way to Alaska.
Image: Port of Vancouver (BC Canada)
Victoria BC is currently on track to see ~330 ships dock in 2022, carrying ~725,000 passengers, which is up from a total of 257 ships and ~700,000 passengers pre-COVID back in 2019.
Vancouver BC expects 306 cruise ship calls, which is a 6.5% increase from 288 in 2019.