~ 12 cruise ship calls, maximum of 5 to 6 million dollars earned from homeporting.~
PHILIPSBURG: --- Minister of TEATT Roger Lawrence in response to the question regarding the promised $52M from homeporting said that he will not enter into a debate about the promised $52M from the previous Minister of TEATT Ludmilla de Weever’s calculus, however, the Minister of TEATT provided some details that clearly showed the $52M was nowhere closed to what the country yielded.
Minister Lawerence said there were 12 cruise ship calls with 18% capacity. He said on average each homeporting vessel carries a maximum of 2,200 passengers, each call had about 400 passengers per call. Lawerence said the average expense per passenger is $150.00.
The Minister said the specialty with homeporting is that 80% of the passengers go directly to the ship to prepare for departure or directly to the airport to return to their final destination, therefore there is not much of a spinoff effect. The remaining passengers he said stay roughly 3 days prior to departing and 3 days after when they return to the destination.
Lawerence further stated based on basic calculations which include the airport tax St. Maarten gathered between five to six million dollars during the homeporting