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Cruise ships could be docking in Delta, eventually

A new cruise ship terminal could still be in the cards for Delta. Due to COVID-19, the cruise season had been postponed until Oct. 31, following direction from Transport Canada.
delta cruise ships
Prior to COVID-19, the port noted cruise is a key economic driver for the region and each ship that visits Vancouver stimulates about $3 million in direct activity to the local economy.

A new cruise ship terminal could still be in the cards for Delta.

Due to COVID-19, the cruise season had been postponed until Oct. 31, following direction from Transport Canada.

The port says it will continue to follow direction from Transport Canada and is refocusing efforts to plan for the 2021 cruise season.

The port had been looking into the feasibility of building a second Lower Mainland cruise ship terminal on the banks of the Fraser River, already having conducted a preliminary study looking at potential sites in Delta or Richmond.

It’s an analysis that was driven by growth in cruise volumes and cruise lines using bigger ships.

Vancouver Fraser Port Authority president and CEO Robin Silvester told the Optimist recently that while the pandemic has impacted the industry, a new facility could still be needed down the road.

The port’s plan is to continue to look into the feasibility of a new terminal but things will be delayed, which might end up being a good thing, he said.

“What we’re hearing from the cruise industry is that they are working hard on how they will get business going again. They see the Alaska itinerary as an important one in their restart and in their long term future. They’re wanting to restart the industry next year and are very aware, as we are, that there’s a lot of work to do there and processes to go through to make sure it’s absolutely safe,” Silvester said.

“It’s not clear yet whether they will be able to restart and we will be taking guidance from the health authorities on that. The industry expects things to come back. Probably the development timeline for new capacity is slower, so we will continue to look at the options and try to understand the best way forward. It’s probably going to be a few years further away than it might have been but in some ways that could be a good thing because we were running tight against capacity, so this gives us a little more breathing room. At the moment, everything would point toward us needing capacity in the medium term, so we’ll continue to look at the opportunities."

Silvester previously noted that building a man-made island, as would be the case for the proposed Terminal 2 container facility at Roberts Bank, would be an enormous undertaking, so a cruise ship terminal on existing land along the Fraser River could be a good option if the port decided to move ahead.

In 2019, Vancouver welcomed more than one million cruise passengers on 288 ships, a 22 per cent increase in passenger volume over 2018.