BREAKING NEWS: Cruise ship group threatens Bar Harbor
BAR HARBOR, Nov. 15, 2021 - In its strongest language yet, the cruise ship industry’s trade association is threatening to take Bar Harbor to court if it proceeds with plans to curb the 2022 season.
In a letter to the council last Thursday, sent though its local vichy, the council’s own cruise ship committee, Kelly Craighead, CEO of Cruise Lines International Association, laid out potential damages, including loss of revenue to the industry from other ports which may be affected by Bar Harbor’s schedule changes.
The scanned letter, contained in the agenda packet for the cruise ship committee meeting Tuesday afternoon, states, in part:
Town councilman Gary Friedmann stated, “I welcome CLIA's interest in constructive dialogue but answer to the voters of this town, not CLIA's threats of legal action.”
The CLIA letter repeated false data that there are 3.5 annual visitors to Acadia National Park. The number of “visits” is often confused with “visitors.” No one knows exactly how many tourists the park attracts. Before this season, park liaison to the cruise ship committee John Kelly told QSJ the number of visitors could be as low as 750,000. That was before this record year which expects visits to exceed 4 million, which could be 1 million tourists making four trips into the park each, or 1.3 million visiting three times.
In 2019, Bar Harbor hosted 157 cruise ships that carried 250,164 passengers. In 2022, 174 ships carrying 292,212 passengers are so far scheduled for port visits.
CLIA CEO used the false number to understate the impact of cruise ship tourism:
Legal experts say any such a lawsuit would trigger liability insurance to provide Bar Harbor with legal counsel. In 2020 and 2021, the council, without much hesitation, closed Bar Harbor to cruise ships, except for one small line, because of the pandemic.
The cruise ship committee is scheduled to discuss the CLIA letter Tuesday at 3:30. A Zoom webinar is open to the public.