Minister welcomes Ocean Village

Passengers and crew of the cruise liner Ocean Village were welcomed to St Vincent on Monday as it started its Caribbean winter cruises.

The vessel will be visiting St Vincent every other week between November 13 and April 9, 2007.

On arrival Captain Giuseppe Arcomone made a courtesy call on Minister of Tourism Glen Beache and Director of Tourism Vida Bernard who presented him with a plaque.{{more}}

In acceptance and presentation of his own plaque to the minister Captain Arcomone expressed pleasure at being able to visit St Vincent and said it reminded him of his Italian hometown and at the same time said that there were no plans for the immediate future for this vessel to visit the country after the winter season.

The vessel, flying a UK flag and owned by P&O Cruises, has a capacity of 1,800 passengers and 514 crew but on this week’s visit there were 1,600 passengers onboard.

According to a 2000 PriceWaterHouseCoopers survey for the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association, the average amount spent by a cruise liner with a capacity of 2,000 passengers and 800 crew is US$259,000 per visit taking into consideration provisioning and spending by passengers and crew while ashore.