STAR-BULLETIN FILE
Norwegian Cruise Line, which operates the cruise ship Norwegian Star, predicts it will bring 650,000 passengers to Hawaii for cruises by 2007.
Norwegian Cruise Line sees big potential to increase its Japanese market in short round-the-islands cruises it will start when it gets its American-flag vessels into the Hawaii market. Norwegian sees
Japan market growingBy Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.com"We do get about 50 Japanese on a ship that can handle 2,000 passengers," Colin Veitch, president and chief executive officer of Norwegian, said yesterday.
Japanese traditionally stay for a relatively short period.
The number is small because the ships in service now cannot do less than a seven-day cruise because they have to run 1,200 miles to Fanning Island in the Republic of Kiribati to satisfy a U.S. law requiring foreign ships to make an foreign stop between U.S. ports, Veitch said.
Under an exemption signed into law by President Bush, Norwegian will be able to sail ships in Hawaii waters that are now being finished in a German shipyard. Norwegian will use U.S. crews, pay U.S. wages and taxes and the ships will be considered American, meaning they won't have to make a foreign stop, Veitch said in a meeting with Star-Bulletin editors and reporters.
Japanese travel businesses have been asking if Norwegian could run cruises of, say, five days, but even that is impossible if a Fanning stop is included, Veitch said.
Two of its U.S.-flag ships will make island cruises of three and four days, just right for the Japanese market, he said.
Still, the majority of Norwegian's passengers will be Americans, he said.
With two U.S.-flag ships in service and keeping one foreign ship for the longer voyages that will continue to include Fanning, Norwegian expects to bring 400,000 people to Hawaii in 2005, its first full year of operation under the new system, Veitch said.
By 2007, Norwegian could have some 650,000 passengers in Hawaii a year, he said.
That will make Hawaii about one-third of the business of the Miami-based cruise line, he said.
A survey commissioned by Norwegian showed that some 10,200 jobs would be created in Hawaii, by Norwegian and businesses that benefit from its passengers, Veitch said. The ships themselves will employ about 3,000 and the company hopes to hire as many of them as possible in Hawaii, he said.
The first new ship is expected to go into service in July 2004. Veitch said the company expects to begin hiring workers this summer. The new employees will be put into service in Norwegian's vessels in the Caribbean and elsewhere while they learn the company's operations.
Those will be union jobs, with foreign unions, and they pay an experienced waiter perhaps $2,500 a month, plus room and food on board. Veitch said that when the U.S. ships are operating, the crew members will join them and become members of U.S. unions.
Just which unions they might be has yet to be decided, he said.
Veitch said that unlike the "Project America" law written for American Classic Voyages, which gave that now-bankrupt company a 30-year monopoly in Hawaiian waters in return for its massive U.S. shipbuilding program, Norwegian will have no monopoly.
"It doesn't stop anybody building a U.S. ship and bringing it here. It doesn't stop anyone converting a U.S. (cargo) hull into a passenger ship," he said.
Norwegian Cruise Line
