Cruise ship visits to inject $270 million into WA economy

Three cruise ships will make their maiden calls to Fremantle this month, marking a resurgence in the $270 million-a-year industry in WA.

Tourism Minister Paul Papalia said this week more than 100 cruise ships will have visited Fremantle, Esperance, Albany, Busselton, Exmouth and Broome by the end of June, bringing an estimated 112,000 guests to WA in 2018-19.

The ships calling into Fremantle will be:

• Silverseas’ new ultra luxurious flagship, Silver Muse, with 596 guests aboard.
• Superliner MSC Magifica, which is stopping in Fremantle as part of a 199-day world cruise.
• The Viking Sun en route to Durban, South Africa.

Mr Papalia said 2019-20 was expected to bring more cruise ships to WA.

He said Carnival Australia was returning to WA this year, with the Sun Princess — which carries 2000 guests — expected to home port in WA for a record 141 days.

“The cruise sector is a vital part of the tourism industry and helps an increasing number of visitors enjoy our extraordinary State,” Mr Papalia said.

“When Carnival stopped home porting in WA because of some regional port issues, we acted swiftly to rectify the problems and committed to improvements at Geraldton, Broome and Fremantle ports.

“Carnival has responded with the biggest investment the cruise brand has ever made in this State.”

The Fremantle Passenger Terminal has received a $3.25 million spruce-up to help improve the experience for cruise ship passengers.

Fremantle mayor Brad Pettitt said while the makeover was welcome, the area in front of the passenger terminal made an ugly first impression of the port city.

“At the moment, whilst the passenger terminal itself is quite good, once visitors get out of that they arrive at this giant industrial carpark of the port,” he said.

“There is a huge opportunity there to actually make that a nice arrival point, with good connections back into Fremantle.

“At the moment you arrive at a desolate, port infrastructure.”

The State Government recently established the Victoria Quay steering group, chaired by Fremantle MLA Simone McGurk, to look at those issues.

“The Victoria Quay steering group is working to create a vision for activating what is currently an underutilised area with enormous potential,” Ms McGurk said.

“A key objective is improving the visitor experience by better connecting our port city with the waterfront.

“We want to see Victoria Quay transformed into a vibrant, world-class cruise ship destination.”