North West and Canada Cruise Association

Economics

During 2012, approximately 1,000 cruise ship calls were made at Canadian cruise ports. They generated more than two-million passenger arrivals throughout the six-month cruise season. Pacific ports, including Nanaimo, Prince Rupert, Victoria and Vancouver accounted for 57 percent of all Canadian cruise passenger traffic, with 1.18 million passengers.

In 2012, a total of 3.2 million passengers and crew members arrived on Canadian shores. The majority of them, (1.8 million), arrived in British Columbia, where the country's largest cruise port operates in Vancouver.

The economic benefits for the Canadian economy come from five principal sources:

• Spending by cruise passengers and crew for goods and services associated with their trip, (including travel to the port of embarkation and vacation spending before and after the cruise).
• Expenditures by the cruise lines for goods and services necessary for cruise operations, (including food and beverages, fuel, vessel maintenance and repair, ship's supplies, etc).
• Shore-side staffing by the cruise lines for their cruise and land transportation and excursion activities.
• Spending by the cruise lines for port services at Canadian ports-of-embarkation and ports-of-call.
• Capital expenditures for equipment and facilities purchased from Canadian businesses.

The major economic impacts of the international cruise industry during 2012 were:

• Cruise ports in Canada that received more than 1,100 cruise calls and some 2.05 million cruise passengers. The cruises generated 9,849 full- and part-time jobs that paid more than $397 million (CDN) in wages and salaries.
• Spending by the cruise lines and their passengers and crew, which generated $1.16 billion in direct spending and $2.38 billion in indirect spending.
  
• The west coast, which benefits from Alaskan cruise traffic at the ports of Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo and Prince Rupert. British Columbia made up about two-thirds of the national economic impact with $1.56 billion in industry output and 12,252 jobs that paid $532 million in wage income.
• Ports in Quebec and Atlantic Canada, which generated just over 3,400 jobs and an estimated $468 million in output. The eastern region accounted for about 19 percent of the cruise industry's impact on the Canadian economy.
• Source markets throughout Canada, where cruise tourism generated nearly 2,000 jobs that paid $100 million in wage income. Cruise lines purchased business services and advertising from firms located in Ontario, food and provisions from suppliers in Alberta, and pre- and post-cruise tours in the Yukon Territory.