(Source: the daily Nice Matin 19/09/2008)

This week the Queen Mary II was in town.

Latest estimates are that 2008 will achieve a record of 180 000 passenger visitors, surpassing early estimates of 160 000.

2009 is expected to be even better and if all bookings are confirmed there will be 100 000 more visitors than in 2008.

Cannes continues to be very much a destination “of demand” amongst customers, and over 140 ships will have visited us this year as opposed to 124 in 2007. The floating dock which is designed specifically to facilitate disembarkation from cruise ships allows liners from the Royal Caribbean line such as “Independence of the Seas” and “Navigator of the Seas” to visit. Each visited this year for the first time, and each has the enormous capacity of 4 000 passengers. It is estimated that cruise ship passengers spend 90€ to 100€ each while they are ashore, worth a total of at least €16m to the local economy, especially to small shops and restaurants.

Not everyone is delighted with the increasing tourist numbers, but it is a phenomenon with limited impact, limited in fact almost exclusively to the centre of town and the seafront of La Croisette, and it is “good for business” in Cannes, and anything that is good for business is good for those who have invested here.

Passengers are generally delighted with a red-carpet welcome and multi-lingual tours which focus on a pedestrian circuit of Le Suquet (the Old Town of Cannes), the Forville Market area, Rue Meynadier and Rue d’Antibes for shopping, and the Palais des Festivals. “The organisers work hard to make people want to come back” says Catherine Vouillon, municipal councillor responsible for tourism. “It is very beneficial because the chamber of commerce and industry gains from harbour fees, and the thousands of passengers are helping to drive the local economy, and therefore the city.”