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With the state of the market it is surely time that a home grown attempt is made to introduce a new ship that is Auusie manned, registered and operated.
There are several corporations and inidviduals in Aus who could do it and the market is growing and growing.
I cannot say much here but there is such a project here in SA (and a serious one) albeit the ship would cruise world wide for part of the year very much as a "ship of state" and sold to the US and European market as much as to SA - they are looking at a 50,000 GRT new build with 1500 pax. If SA can do it then it should be a shoo in for Aus.
Is that topic heading really relevant?
The project being discussed here is very much as a result of that same issue and our market is tiny compared to Aus, if we launched our own we would have to get overseas pax in to make it really work, you don't - you can send it where and when you want. The size of the market in Aus would clearly support at least 1 if not more ships especially if they were home grown as it would encourage even more people to cruise.
Part of the rational in building a state of the art vessel is foreign tourism dollars as the concept of safari and cruise etc would work well here thus gving us badly needed dollars to create employment etc as unemployment here runs at 30 odd%. 1 ship here could produce 5000 jobs both at sea and shoreside with hotels etc. Every 12 tourists visiting SA supports 1 job.
quote:Originally posted by lasuvidaboy:...cruise ships are like large shopping centers. No one will build one unless their are sufficent shoppers/cruisers to support it-year round.
Apart from NCLA of course, who build them anyway!
But that ship wasnt brand new or anything, and the cruise market then wasnt like it is now. It was just before Pacific Sky first came here and took over from Fair Princess.
But yes that venture failed, even though many thought they were much better than Fair Princess/P&O.
quote:Originally posted by claudio:i dont know if you are aware but australia pays their workers a fair wage not like usa or south africa
Well it depends on what you think is a fair wage is. Housekeepers in L.A. as an example make $15.00-$20.00 per hour as do gardeners etc. Sounds pretty good for low skilled work.
quote:Originally posted by claudio:what i meant is that aussies are paid a fair wage and have benefits people in usa dont get like free medical etc not like your poor waiters/ waitresses who have to live on tips
We also have 'free' medical here in the States-the best in the World. No hospitol can turn away a sick person by law. All seniors have medicare and even illegals are covered through in State covered care.
It is a myth that people are not covered here in fact tens of thousands of people come across the southern border every year for our excellent 'free' care due to the fact there is little to no care available in Mexico and Latin America-unless of course you pay up front.
Recently a pregnant woman from Mexico overstayed her tourist Visa in order to give birth to co-joined twins she was carrying. In her native Mexico the twins would have died or been forced to live their lives connected but since the twins were born in the States they were considered US citizens and a team of top doctors were brought in for the million dollar plus procedure at Children's Hospitol in Los Angeles. The US taxpayers of course paid the bill and will continue to pay for a lifetime of care.
Know the facts first.
At least that's one of the argument for getting travel insurance when travelling to the US in particular; you dont want to have to see a GP out of your own pocket.
In the States no one is turned away from getting medical care (no matter how serious the condition) at an emergency room-per Federal law and through state programs such as MediCal.
As an example, illegal Mexican immigrants cross over to get 'free' medical care at rural US hospitols near the US-Mexican border and are not charged for any of the treatments. In Mexico there is limited care and you must pay in advance to see a doctor-that is one reason for these desperate crossings. These small private hospitols have to foot the bill regardless of being reimbursed by the Feds as they are required to provide service to all.
Basic care (seeing a GP) is covered by States and in California we have MediCal that covers the poor and uninsured-w/legal or illegal status. All children and the elderly are covered by additional taxpayer funded programs.
I forget the population of Australia but I believe it is the number living in L.A. County.
quote:lasuvidaboy wrote:...I forget the population of Australia but I believe it is the number living in L.A. County.
Australia's population is just over 20 million.
******
Cheers
quote:Originally posted by bulbousbow:Australia's population is just over 20 million.******Cheers
Not that much more than the approx. 12 million that live in the L.A./So Cal region.
quote:Originally posted by lasuvidaboy:Not that much more than the approx. 12 million that live in the L.A./So Cal region.
Correction, make that 17 million.
Australia has a third of our population. P&O Australia claim to carry around 100,000 per year. Oz is clearly an evolving market.
I'm not sure that the demand is enough to attract and support a home-grown operation? The start-up costs of creating a cruise line must be quite large. The risks must be large?
quote:Originally posted by Malcolm @ cruisepage:I'm not sure that the demand is enough to attract and support a home-grown operation? The start-up costs of creating a cruise line must be quite large. The risks must be large?
There are population formulas for building everything from shopping centers to cinemas etc. Developers will not build until there is a sufficiant number of people to patronize them and I assume it is the same for a cruise line. Since ships are of course mobile, it is far easier to base one (or more) on a seasonal basis or permanently-based on demand.California has twice the population as Australia and we did not have big ships until the 1990s. Before that the smaller (20-25,000 ton) Azure Seas, Sitmar and Princess ships were regulars w/Azure Seas being L.A.'s full time cruise ship for many years. These ships catered to Californians as well as thousands that flew in for cruises.
Pam
quote:Originally posted by PamM:The problem is also that those 20m are spread out over thousands of miles. Every one of the 60m in the UK are within a relatively short distance of any port, not so in Australia.Pam
So it would make sense to base a ship on both the east and west coasts to avoid the 5-6 hour flight.
quote: So it would make sense to base a ship on both the east and west coasts to avoid the 5-6 hour flight.
No Sydney continues t make the most sense with most of the Australian population concentrated in the south east corner of the continent. In fact over 2/3 of the Australian population are within a 90 minute flight of Sydney.
quote:Originally posted by reeves35:No Sydney continues t make the most sense with most of the Australian population concentrated in the south east corner of the continent. In fact over 2/3 of the Australian population are within a 90 minute flight of Sydney.
That would make sense. The same way most cruise ships in California sail from L.A./Long Beach as the vast majority of the population of the state lives in the lower 1/3rd.
Comparing Australia to the US is surprisingly impossible. I remember hearing from somewhere that 80% or Americans dont have a passport, whereas 80% of Australians HAVE a passport. Of course this doesnt mean that proportionally more Australians travel than Americans but it does suggest something along those lines.
And the number of local vs foreign passengers departing from LA is a lot different to the proportion in Sydney (LA is easier for the world to get to apparantly, Sydney is not so I'm expecting a larger proportion of Sydney departures are Australians).
quote:Originally posted by pungpui:Out of interest, what is the combined population of LA county and the OC?
The combined population of L.A. and Orange Counties is approx. 13 million people. The Southern California region also includes San Diego to the south and Ventura (like the new P&O ship ) counties to the north.
The population of California is approx 37 million people w/the vast majority living in the lower 1/3 of the state. Another tidbit, California has 8 out of the 10 highest priced residential communities in the States.
quote:Originally posted by lasuvidaboy:The combined population of L.A. and Orange Counties is approx. 13 million people.
The combined population of L.A. and Orange Counties is approx. 13 million people.
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