Huge cruise ships are a symptom of economic and cultural decline
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We spent the school holidays, as we always do, leaning into the sideways rain of south Devon. It’s worth it because, roughly twice a fortnight, the clouds relax their grip, and the landscape is transfigured by sunshine into a tableau of English beauty so dazzling that it feels scarcely plausible: neon-bright hills of green and yellow, primroses in the hedgerows, newborn lambs like puffs of cotton wool on springs, the river Dart sparkling and serpentine and alive with little sails, and pretty old towns in glowing pastels clambering up the steep banks.
But what’s this? A gigantic machine – almost 800ft long, weighing 58,000 tons and carrying nearly a thousand souls – glides slowly into view. It looks like the monstrous love child of Le Corbusier and HG Wells: a brutalist space ship sent to crush the puny inhabitants of planet Earth. This is – or will be, if the Dart Harbour Authority (DHA) gets its way – the next phase of tourism for the English Riviera. The DHA wants to open up Dartmouth harbour to the kind of cruise ships more often seen blotting out the Bermudan sun or shaking the foundations of Venice.
It’s already happening in the Cornish town of Fowey, which last year hosted the Spirit of Adventure: a cruise ship of the above dimensions, big enough to contain almost half Fowey’s permanent population. It cast a day-long shadow over parts of the little town, blocking the view across the estuary; but local officials declared themselves delighted. The mooring fees alone must be a juicy incentive, and then, always, there is the promised boost to the local economy.
It’s not that this promise is a lie, exactly: more that it is a counsel of failure.
Tourist economies always end up eating themselves. The very qualities that make a place attractive to holidaymakers – unspoiled beauty, peace, local interest and a strong sense of place – are eroded, inevitably, by holidaymakers.
Once tourists reach a critical mass, there aren’t enough locals around to sustain the out-of-season economy: the decent grocer and the lamp-mending shop that make a town both liveable and interesting. The economy becomes ever more dependent on the tourist pound until, eventually, you can’t buy anything except fudge, wetsuits and naff nautical art.
The place starts to feel like it’s losing its identity; the original holidaymakers notice that their secret paradise is getting a bit touristy and down-at-heel. So now the town has to ship in – literally – new customers. By the time the cruise ship idea is mooted, the economy does indeed need a boost. And there will be some local businesses (the fudge shops) that benefit from the temporary disgorging of thousands of day-trippers.
But many cruise passengers are on all-inclusive deals, so they get their food, drink and entertainment on board. A friend who runs a restaurant in Dartmouth tells me the smaller cruise ships that sometimes moor in the harbour bring in very little business: “Maybe a dozen tables over the past few years.” He dreads the arrival of the giant space ships. “Loads of tourists milling around, dropping litter, not spending, just clogging up Dartmouth.”
We should learn from those who have gone before. Venice, Amsterdam and Barcelona have all banned large cruise ships, on the grounds that the social and environmental costs are too high. And they’re never an economic cure – just a symptom of the disease.
