http://www.beautiful-bonaire.nl/column/bonaire_op_cruisecontrol.php

This has gone too far too quickly.

Bonaire had the opportunity to pick & choose it's cruise ship visitors & make them pay a premium for the privilege of visiting a fairly unique island. Unfortunately, the pursuit of the mighty Dollar prevailed and Bonaire has been engulfed by a parade of thoughtless visitors, who have no conception of the fragility of the island.

These monstrous vessels can dump 21,000 gallons of 'grey' water into the sea every single day. While it is true that human waste is filtered out, chemicals & detergents are not. They use the lowest grade of fuel that pollutes the environment more than domestic vehicles & on average, in one day, a cruise ship will consume the same amount of fuel as 12,000 cars!

One only has to look at how the majority of islands in the Caribbean have lost their identity & have become globalised, Bonaire had the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others but instead has chosen to follow suit.

When the divers have stopped coming as a consequence of a polluted & dead reef, the people who have made these decisions will be long gone. I hope that they will be proud of their legacy...

divers are stopping coming to Bonaire because of the airlift problems. airport closings and outrageous fares .. lets not put it all on the cruise ships ... be realistic .. there are many other factors involved ...

Pietri.

You are of course correct in the comments that you make but it is also fair to say that those particular problems are not addressed because the island is no longer totally reliant on vacationers. I checked on flights from the UK a few days ago and for a standard flight, I would need to pay £900 per person. It is indeed getting outrageous.

At this moment in time, I would consider cruise ships & their passengers to be a mere inconvenience to Divers, in the future I believe that they will be instrumental in demise of Bonaire as a 'Divers Paradise'.

Hey, nobody hopes that I am proven wrong more than I.

too bad someone from island can't get on ship before people depart and explain how fragile island is. from what i hear they trample on everything and leave a mess behind. really too bad.

flts from the us also very expensive especially from the west coast

antony
can u translate the dutch letter

thanks

Hi Elaine.

This is a translation of the transcript. It has been done using Google so it isn't perfect but it will give you the general information.


Over 110 years ago was the first cruise ship built in Germany. The 'Prinzessin Victoria Luise' had a length of 95 meters and could hold about 200 wealthy passengers. Since then, the cruise boats ever bigger and bigger. The current record is since November 2009 in the name of the 'Oasis of the Seas'. This American boat, with a price tag of a cool 1.4 billion U.S. dollars, is 360 meters long and can carry over 7,000 passengers!

And this is just the beginning. Norwegian engineers are diligently behind their computers to brainstorm even larger, more imposing and more luxurious boats to design and build their predominantly American customers. Worldwide there are five major cruise lines and for them it is vital from a marketing perspective to the world's largest cruise boat in their fleet, and to hold. The Scandinavian shipbuilders like the arms race also wonderful, they earn millions!

The global cruise tourism is big business in the year 2011 and growth is not there yet. Year after year new records broken in this billion dollar industry. Besides cruises in the Mediterranean Sea and the Norwegian fjords with particular destinations in the Caribbean archipelago immensely popular with Americans and Europeans.

Also on Bonaire, the cruise tourism in recent years 'booming'. Great helmsman behind this success is pretty Ronella Asjoe Chin-Croes. That was until late 2010 Aruban director of tourism office of Bonaire and in that capacity for many cruise lines to ensure that the Caribbean island in their itineraries are included.

And its effect is not missed. The number of cruise tourists exploded from 50,000 in 2005 to 250,000 in the past year, an increase of 500% in five years time! Croes-Asjoe Bonaire has now abandoned, is now at the helm of the Aruba Tourism Authority. One Happy Island in 2010 received more than 700,000 cruise tourists. To her the task to the Bahamas from the throne. The archipelago of 700 islands of the lead with 1.8 million cruise tourists per year!

But it has something unreal. The village Kralendijk where sometimes simultaneously two of those huge zeekolossen are docked at the cruise port. If the angry high-rise apartments above the ancient ships and pasangrahan from Fort Orange. It seems as if the Ark of Noah has come to anyone entering on Bonaire to rescue from impending and inevitable flood.


For Bonaire is mass tourism, but all still new. The island does little awkward. Bonaire has in recent decades as a destination for ecotourists must now also be set to other forms of tourism. And the cruise tourist of today's spoiled, very spoiled. Most cruise boats are floating five-star hotels where it is lacking any luxury. Malls, cinemas, theaters, swimming pools and restaurants, everything is on board. And then you suddenly landed in Kralendijk.

In Aruba, they also know how to handle the masses of cruise tourists that the island is flooded annually. When the giant cruise ships in port Oranjestad deflate assist dozens chic shops all the doors wide open. In exchange for U.S. dollars or Aruban florins are diamond-encrusted gold Rolex, Armani suits and Louis Vuitton handbags available.

And that's just the first hurdle. There is a lot more entertainment for the tourist cruise on the island. Besides the miles of white sandy beaches and 35 casinos, numerous island tours in air-cooled ultra-modern coaches to book. On Aruba it is even possible to board a real submarine steps to the reef from a comfy chair while enjoying a snack and drink to behold.

In contrast, Bonaire is a small market lifted the fly to the Plaza Wilhelmina as cruise ships. This attracts the parade of cruise tourists ignoring authentic handmade jewelry and paintings cute. This market also disappears again as snow in the sun as the cruise tourists have visited their floating property. In addition, swarms of tourists on cruise downtown Kralendijk or make a trip to Sorobon Beach.


Worldwide sail a few hundred ocean-going cruise ships around. Most ships have a capacity of about 2,500 passengers. Supposedly, the big boys take 7,000 tourists on board. It is now waiting for the day that the boats will dock in Kralendijk. Two such boats and Kralendijk is flooded with 14,000 day-trippers!


Policy makers in Bonaire waiting to learn the job dealing with this type of mass tourism and the consequences this entails. It requires quite a lot of infrastructure changes and improvements to this new stream of guests in a pleasant way to proceed. Additionally, she is forced to attractive "things to do" to develop the cruise tourists.


Hopefully it will lead eventually to a more balanced distribution of cruise tourists on Bonaire, Kralendijk making it smaller and somewhat relieved the cruise tourists on the Caribbean island a fun time!

thank u antony

it is really too bad priorities are mixed up

i really appreciate the translation
elaine