Cruise shuttle proves popular for CBD

A shuttle bus taking cruise ship passengers to Tauranga city centre is proving popular this season.

The Downtown Tauranga Cruise Ship City Centre Express Shuttle bus is already well ahead of projected targets.

This year Downtown Tauranga are running more buses and Tuskany Mainstreet spokesperson Sally Cooke said each year they were building on the last.

"This year the new model is already delivering 30 per cent above our projected targets after the first ten cruise ship days that we have operated on. While the numbers are still lower than we would like, the trend is good and if we can keep building on the numbers we will have a great season.

The initiative, run in partnership with Bethlehem Coachlines, offers tourists on the cruise ships a direct return trip to the city centre.

More than 1900 passengers have used the service to date.

"As with last year, and as Tourism BoP indicated to us, the beginning of the season is always a little slow. So we were never expecting numbers to be huge...but at least we have delivered over 1900 tourists into the city. If our numbers continue to grow steadily we hope to achieve in excess of 10,000 tourists into the city centre this cruise ship season, which will be a solid increase on last season's numbers."

With Tourism BoP data indicating the average cruise ship tourist spends in excess of US$100 a day in an iPort, Downtown Tauranga are hoping to capture their share of this spend into the city centre.

Tourists on the buses receive a city centre brochure and cruise offers from participating businesses - designed to specifically attract the tourists into selected businesses.

"We are also developing a range of initiatives to encourage them to stay longer and partake in specific city centre activities while they're here. The first new initiative from this is the new Tauranga City Art Walk - a collaboration between The Art Gallery, Creative Tauranga, The Cargo Shed and Tourism Bay of Plenty.

"Downtown Tauranga are also capturing data to measure average length of stay in the city by the tourists. The next cruise ship shuttle buses operate this Saturday with the arrival of the Pacific Pearl. "We are hoping many of these cruise ship passengers will come ion to the city and enjoy our inaugural Trustpower Christmas Parade."