Cruise Destination Honningsvåg: Community care for cruise

Cruise tourism played an important role in the development of tourism industry of Magerøya with the port of Honningsvåg being the focal point for the distribution of the cruise passengers to towards a main attraction of the island – North Cape. However, rapid development of tourism flows and increased attention to the destination from several large cruise providers have resulted in the public and political debates, not least in relation to the uneven distribution of economic benefits. This case report is a result of combined analysis of several sources of documentation – desk research, participant observations in the field and personal interviews dealing with the main issues in relation to cruise tourism development. The idea is to summarize some of the insights and to help to inform the future development of Honningsvåg as a destination in a more sustainable way.

The report shows that Honningsvåg has been left out in its development as a tourism destination due to the overemphasis on the visits to the iconic North Cape one of the most significant attractions on the territory of Northern Europe. The predominant number of cruise tourists in a similar manner with the land-based tourists willing to focus their attention to this geographical point only. Thus, the problems related to the challenges of the limited economic impact to the surrounding communities on the island and increased pressures on the environmental sustainability resulted debated in the possible futures of this development.

The key issues identified by this report related to the development of cruise tourism are the following. The issue related to the overcrowding resulting from the use of common resources and infrastructure by few major tourism industry stakeholders. Heavy reliance on international foreign labor to meet the demands of growing volumes of the cruise passenger traffic creates challenges connected to the quality-of-service delivery to the heterogeneous cruise segment. Lack of clear organizational structure in relation to long-term planning and coordination in hosting of the cruise tourists resulting in inefficiencies and challenges in managing arrival, transportation, and activities at the destination. There is an absence of coherent master plan accepted and supported by different stakeholders working together in providing sustainable futures for the destination development.

Currently, this absence of a common agenda and vision for future development creates more imbalances in the development of the tourism industry where actors are interested in short-term economic gains. Thus, consensus in relation to the strict regulations applied onto the cruise tourism is difficult to achieve in the presence of few actors deriving the most economic profit from it. The responsibility of the decision making is shifting in between the leadership of the harbor, municipal politicians, and not surprisingly local Destination Management Organization. Still, there seem to be lack of engagement in the finding of common solution and responsibility to move towards stricter regulation of cruise tourism. The need for close collaboration and long-term commitment for planning and management for more sustainable futures is a core of the approach for future destination development of Magerøya.