Hilo cruise ship visitors to increase slightly in 2015

East Hawaii businesses can expect little to change in the coming year when it comes to the number of cruise ship visitor arrivals.

Advance bookings for 2015 show port calls will increase by a single ship, with a potential of just over 3,000 more tourists arriving at the Port of Hilo compared to 2014. Next year’s bookings set the stage for a maximum of 238,703 visitors.

The number of cruise visitors to Hilo has steadily, albeit too slowly for many, increased over the years since a precipitous drop in 2008 that saw the number of cruise ship visitors halved, with Norwegian Cruise Lines cutting regular visits by Pride of Hawaii and Pride of Aloha. In its heyday, Hilo welcomed half a million cruise ship visitors.

While next year’s bookings don’t qualify as a disappointment, they could certainly look better, said Destination Hilo President Dinnie Kysar.

“I’d like to see more of a comeback,” she said. “I’d like to see more infrastructure avaiable, I’m always pulling for that.”

Kysar — whose nonprofit organization serves as a welcoming committee for visitors as they step off the ships, providing maps, information and aloha — said that investements in a walkway or multi-purpose trail from the port to the downtown shops and attractions could go a long way toward improving the experiences of visitors to Hilo and drive future visits.

Meanwhile, on the heaviest visitor days, the city’s ability to cope with the increase in volume leaves a little to be desired, she explained.

“When we have multiple ships and the big ships arriving, there’s a transportation issue,” she said. “… Some people are coming back and telling us that they love the tours, but that if they’ve had to stand in line for an hour for a taxi or a bus, that’s a problem.”

Doug Arnott, owner and operator of Arnott’s Lodge &Hiking, said Wednesday that demands on established tour operators are increasing, while start-ups face an ever tougher field of competitors as they work to get the new businesses off the ground.

“Next year, I don’t expect a lot of change to business. Incrementally, cruise ship companies are getting more concerned environmentally, more concerned with liability,” he said. “They’re asking us to become certified, certifiably green, through nationally recognized agencies. They’re asking us to be uniformed, more professional, neather, and basically in every way more like them. In that sense, there are rising expectations on the part of the cruise ship companies.”

How the ongoing lava flow stalled above Pahoa will impact the tourism business in East Hawaii in 2015 remains to be seen, he added. If the flow severely impacts access to attractions, that could definitely create problems with cruise ship companies.

“Cruise ship companies are really into stability. When you have a tour that varies every week, that doesn’t suit them at all,” Arnott said.

One thing that Arnott hopes won’t be repeated this year is a series of cancellations of cruise ship visits. Five visits by the Sapphire Princess, five by the Celebrity Century, three by the Zaandam, two by the Star Princess, and one each by the Ooosterdam, Columbus 2, and Carnival Miracle, made for a difficult few weeks for tour operators, he said.

“We don’t know why, but suddenly this year … there was a whole slew of cancellations,” he said. “… I think they’re going down to Australia.”

The state Department of Transportation was unable to respond to requests for information regarding cruise ship bookings by the end of the day Wednesday.

Norwegian Cruise Lines’ Pride of America will have the distinction of having, yet again, the largest impact on local businesses by far, ferrying nearly half of all visitors to East Hawaii, arriving once a week every week of the year.

Other ships scheduled to put up big visitor numbers include:

Grand Princess, with eight visits totaling 20,800 visitors

Star Princess, with six visits totaling 15,576 visitors

Ruby Princess, with four visits totaling 10,400 visitors

Carnival Miracle, with four visits totaling 10,000 visitors

To see the complete list of bookings, visit http://hidot.hawaii.gov/harbors/shipping-schedule/.

Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune- herald.com.