Explanation of Indicator1
Source of this information is the Florida Seaport Transportation and Economic Development Council, A Five-Year Plan to Accomplish the Mission of Florida's Seaports. Tallahassee, FL: 1994.
Florida's seaports contribute to the state's economic vitality through trade and tourism. The most notable tourist activity is the operation of cruise boats which, in turn, is a major component of Florida's port activities. The cruises offered to passengers include transatlantic crossings, multi-day cruises, weekend cruises, and one- and two-day cruises. These services are quite popular, as evidenced by the fact that Florida has the world's three busiest cruise ports.
The ports have a substantial impact on the economy. State and local tax revenues from cruise and trade ports are well in excess of $600 million. Additionally, the port industry must purchase goods and services. These purchases ripple throughout all sectors of the economy, creating jobs, income, and profits and generating substantial tax revenue for the state and local governments.
All of Florida's ports are quite busy; in fact, Florida's seaports are nearing capacity and additional investment in capital expansion at Florida's ports is anticipated in order to meet future demand. Thus, it is important for the state to track the demand for cruises, and the number of cruise boat passengers is a good indication of the demand at cruise ports. When tracked over time, this information may show whether demand is growing and which ports are most in demand and in need of capital improvements or expansion. Further, the number of passengers at cruise ports is a good reflection of the economic value of the state's ports. The ports which are in greater demand tend to be of greater economic value because they generate more revenue and bring more tourists to the state.
Data Characteristics
SOURCE
Information on cruise boat passengers in Florida may be obtained from the Florida Department of Commerce, Florida Visitors Study, by contacting Berry Pitegoff, 107 West Gaines Street, Room 501-C, Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2000, or at (904) 488-4953.
ACQUISITION
The data are available in hard copy format at no cost; they are also available in the annual Florida Visitors study which is available at no cost.
COLLECTION
The data are collected on a regular basis and tabulated annually by port in the Florida Visitors Study.
Data Limitations
The data include both embarking and disembarking passengers; thus, passengers are counted twice. This calculation makes it difficult to distinguish between passengers who take a round-trip cruise and those who arrive at a Florida port and then do not
leave through the port or vice versa. The data collection does not consider that some passengers may leave or arrive by air instead of taking the cruise boat round-trip. Also, the data reflect only the number of passengers; the type of ticket purchased is
not considered. Thus, some ports which have mostly one-day cruises (such as Port Everglades) will be counted the same as ports such as Port of Miami which have only multi-day cruises.
Data Analysis
For the period of record illustrated in the chart below, numbers of cruise boat passengers remained fairly stable for Port of Miami, Port Everglades, and Port Canaveral; this stability may be due to the likelihood that these ports are near capacity. The
slight upward trend seen for most of the ports listed below may be due to
efforts by the state to expand the ports, as ten million dollars are
invested in capital expansion at Florida's ports each year.2
The passenger figures for Port of Tampa and Port of Palm Beach show great variability during this period: in 1990, the Port of Tampa had just over one-third of the passengers it recorded for 1989, and between 1992 and 1993 its number of passengers more than tripled. The Port of Palm Beach experienced the greatest overall change during this period, as evidenced by the 117% increase in passengers between 1989 to 1993.
Passengers Seaport 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 Port of Miami 3,056,298 2,745,329 3,034,548 3,138,823 3,049,568 Port Everglades 1,934,904 2,209,232 2,254,741 2,284,846 2,403,829 Port Canaveral 960,434 949,213 1,101,216 1,046,166 1,097,642 Port of Tampa 189,877 65,497 49,329 77,282 244,132 Port of Palm Beach 151,674 163,454 261,261 263,127 329,727
Recommendations
As noted above, the collection of data for the number of cruise passengers ignores that some tickets are more costly and reflect more service and a demand for more goods. This count of the numbers of passengers is not helpful in an evaluation of the
services provided on each cruise. A longer cruise requires a larger staff and the purchase of more goods (such as food) for each cruise. Thus, a longer cruise will have a larger impact on the economy than a shorter cruise which does not have as large a
staff or as great a need for food. This information would be helpful to the state and local economies, which must decide how much to invest in their ports. Instead of the current method of combining all types of tickets purchased (counting every passenger)
at each port, the data should be collected to reflect the different types of tickets purchased. This collection could be conducted annually by having each port supply the number of each type of ticket sold. The number of passengers should then be
displayed so that the number of each type of ticket purchased at each of the ports is shown.