This week, Boston-based Carnival Glory gave Portland a try, loading provisions that included 15 trucks of food adding up to 320 pallets of food, toiletries and other supplies.
The city hopes to pitch the service to other cruise ship companies as well, establishing itself as a supply loading site, a first step towards designating the city as a homeport.
For the local economy, a homeport designations would mean longshoremen would mean more jobs,
“If Portland was to attract a medium or major cruise ship, that would be huge business,” Jack Humeniuk, business agent for Local 861 of the International Longshoremen’s Association told BangorDailyNews. “It would just be so much more economic value, maybe 10 times or 20 times what you’d get from what we’d call a ‘port of call.’ It really is good, good business for the area. It hits hotels, it hits shops, it hits the airport, it hits restaurants.”
Currently, cruise ships use Portland as a port of call. This week, Carnival Glory brought nearly 3,000 passengers to Portland and is one of 59 ships expected to bring nearly 70,000 passengers to visit Portland in 2012.
Flickr photo by adobemac
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