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Old 12-22-2007, 05:07 PM   #1
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This is not "how much does it cost to cruise." This isn't "How much did you spend in Fiji?" This is, "what do you spend on a monthly- or weekly- basis in the various ports while cruising?" It doesn't have to be exact, and shouldn't be overblown, but this is intended to buttress the arguments of many destination-based businesses that cruising sailors are good for the local economy. This is a subject near and dear to my heart, because it isn't just Fiji who discounts the cruising sailor as a benefit to the economy, and it's the powerful resorts who get the ear of government in most economies dependent upon the tourist dollar.

I can't tell anybody else how much it costs to cruise, but I can tell people how much it costed/costs us. Here's the full request, and the justification for the request.

Michael Homsany, of Bebi Electronics in Savusavu, Fiji, is a friend of all cruisers, and has asked for help in gathering information. Here is Michael's request:

"The short of things is that the current government of Fiji has changed it's policies to only allow a cruising vessel to stay duty free in it's waters for 3 months [it used to be 12 months] (BTW the import duty is 27%+12.5% VAT levied on the total of value plus duty, on their their survey of valuation. In short, a lot of scratch!).

This is going to have a negative effect on both the cruising community, esp. those who would have otherwise chosen to spend the cyclone season here (Fiji)
and the community. Being a small town, Savusavu will be hit far harder than the rest of Fiji.

The problem in fighting this is that there is no large, single vested interest speaking out against this, as the monies spent in the local economy of the large cities is 'lost in the noise' of all other local commerce.

I can't personally stick my neck out, but I do have the resources to get the information to those who can, along with a resource who can give me statistics about the visiting yachts themselves (country of origin, number of crew, length of stay, etc.).

What I am soliciting is input from all cruisers everywhere as to what your monthly expenditures are in the local economy (food, pogie bait, entertainment, etc.). I have no desire whatsoever to know who you are or anything else about you.

Armed with this information, we hope to get the Interim Government to amend its position in relationship to yachts by showing that there is far more revenue to be garnered by having foreign visitors spend money for a longer period of time than the occassional vessel being imported at a ruinious duty rate.

If you don't want to publically post, please feel free to PM me, or email us direct (sales@bebi-electronics.com).

Thanks in advance for your help and information, and best regards,
"

Or, you can just post your replies on this forum, and Michael and I can tally the results.

(The latest Fiji regulations are posted on the Wiki's Fiji Page)

.
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Old 12-22-2007, 05:23 PM   #2
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I'll kick this off, and welcome comments.

I haven't cruised on a sailboat in several years, but I pulled my records from 1999 through 2001, and come up with an average expenditures of $1,650.00 USD per month. There should be some allowance for inflation to present day, - so I will add 5%, bringing it to $1,730.00 USD per month. A comment - we were in Borneo for a significant part of this, and it's very, very inexpensive there compared to S. Pacific islands.

This does not include haulouts, or any overseas plane reservations booked. Anybody leaving their boat in Fiji while flying back to their home country for a visit would have a sizeable commission paid to the local economy as well.
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Old 12-22-2007, 06:04 PM   #3
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I wish to personally appeal to ALL cruisers to support this effort. If anyone in the world will take this seriously and fight for our interests, Michael will. This information can be used all over the world where we find that our wings are being clipped.

Let's give him the support he needs! Supply the information - he needs it to help us!

Thank you.

Admin.

[EDIT] This appeal for information is vital to all cruisers around the world so, please notify as many cruisers as possible, everywhere, as best you can, to get their input.

.
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Old 12-22-2007, 06:20 PM   #4
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3 months certainly seems unreasonable especially given the location of Fiji and its popularity as a cruising destination.

Our voyage from S.Africa to NZ via the Panama Canal and S.Pacific ended up costing us around USD 1000/mth excluding spares, haulouts etc. i.e. provisioning, eating out, drinks and so on.

I hope this helps.

Best regards

Craig
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Old 12-22-2007, 07:41 PM   #5
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I would have to add that we averaged right at $1700.00 a month. This including the Caribbean, Bahamas, and Florida over a period of 4 years. Up to the year of 2006.
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Old 12-24-2007, 01:26 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by haffiman37 View Post
I think it might be more reasonable to compare income from yacties to income from general tourists, and that will not go in favor of the yachties.
As I said earlier, this is a subject near and dear to my heart. In many tourist destinations, including Fiji, the resorts that accomodate the fly-in fly-out tourists monopolize their guests' time and money, and little money goes to the small businesses that are the infrastructure of a village, town, region, and country. The small shops, dressmakers, casual laborers, and the other varied providers of materials and services to visiting yachts.

Peter liked to describe our landfalls this way: "We drop anchor and immediately go ashore to buy food, get our propane tanks filled, buy a little gasoline for our outboard, and jerry-jug diesel to the boat. Jeanne picks up the mail and sends out all our letters, buys gifts to send home, and invites all the local kids to the boat to give them balloons." We usually did inland touring off the boat, paying locals to watch our boat and using planes, trains, buses and taxis to travel around and through a country. That's probably why it took us so long to get just halfway around the world. And more than just occasionally we provided free entertainment or translation services to resort guests.

Cruising yachts do not drop their money in the resorts which are frequently foreign-owned and which give the majority of their business to the import agents and large bulk providers of food and materials. Cruisers drop their money directly into the hands of the locals, in the shops that the locals depend upon. Anything that can make those small businesses more profitable is of benefit to the local economy. A successful local economy is generally more content and less critical of its government.

One inexpensive way that a tourist economy can expand is through the welcoming of visiting yachts. Suva can accomodate hundreds of added tourists each year without erecting a single building. Services valuable to its own citizens are more likely to exist when there is an outside market for their product. That outside market is not usually the fly-in tourist - what do they need with seamstresses, snack mixes, painters, carpenters, lumber yards, or electrical wire? It is the cruising yacht, however, that provide that market and they visit many places that derive not a whit of benefit from the resort-destined tourist.

France spends a great deal of money subsidizing copra and small businesses in the Tuomotus and other islands outside the Society Islands where the tourists spend their money. Papeete could be a teeming slum like Colon, Panama if there were not some way for the Polynesians to make living outside the "big city" attractive and keep them all from moving to Tahiti. We, for example, spent more than half our time in French Polynesia outside the Society Islands where there are virtually no tourists.

You might not like the USVI, but the local government recognized that cruising yachts provided an important benefit to their tourist-dependent economy, and loosened many of its regulations to encourage the yachts to come and to stay there. The same is true of St. Martin/Sint Maarten, and many of the other Caribbean islands.

The wise bureaucrat will recognize the benefits of a contribution to their economy that does not demand special attention or require that they expand their infrastructure or offer special services. The yachting community has nobody to go into the bureaucrats' offices and say "we're the big guys and if you can't provide what we want we'll take our business to another island/country."

And then consider the poor countries, such as the Solomon Islands or the outlying island groups in Papua New Guinea. We dropped anchor in more than one place that had never seen a cruising yacht before, and we left something of value to the locals at every stop.
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Old 12-24-2007, 01:57 PM   #7
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To expand a little further. The foreign owned resorts sell package deals that include meals, drinks, laundry, transport, (the list is a mile long), etc., within the resort. The local economy (especially on the ground) loses out on all of these items.

To return to the topic, please give Michael the "ammunition" he needs by quoting your cruising expenditure.
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Old 12-25-2007, 07:22 PM   #8
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Let us return to the first post in this topic. Please submit the information as called for to assist Michael in this cause.
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Old 01-03-2008, 01:34 PM   #9
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Bump!
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In 1986 we went cruising for a few years. After 20 years and 50+ countries and several oceans, we are STILL "cruising for a few years".

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Old 01-04-2008, 11:07 AM   #10
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Well, I think Jeanne and a few others rounded up the situation quite well. It might be summarized as "very few governments are not influenced by vested interest".

Back to the point US$1,000/month is about what I spend locally to be adjusted for purchasing power.
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Old 01-05-2008, 06:57 PM   #11
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I don't recall what I used to spend while cruising but it was not a trivial amount between food, drinks, sightseeing and repairs. Instead let me tell you the story of Puerto La Cruz.

The El Morro Tourist Complex was designed in the mid 1960s and has been building ever since. Because it is a prime destination for yachts we have 8 to 10 marinas and 5 to 6 boatyards. Puerto La Cruz started out as an oil port and for this reason there is a lot of industry which is a big help when yachts need major repairs. Business was booming.

Then in the mid 1990s, the government saw this large number of rich "gringos" and "musius" (a slang term for foreigner from the French monsieur) on their yachts and decided to balance the national budget by taxing them a ridiculous amount per boat per month and per crew member as well. The upshot was that the yachties picked up their anchor and left. The yacht professionals, being out of work, looked for new opportunities. I met a lot of them in Trinidad. For all practical purposes we helped Trinidad get into the yacht repair business. It took a lot of lobbying to have this ridiculous tax removed and a lot of work to get the yachties to come back.

http://www.caribbeancompass.com/flotillavenez.htm

It is unfortunate that politicians don't realize that you cannot tax a highly mobil population, cruisers simply will sail to a new, more affordable, more friendly destination.
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Old 01-05-2008, 09:10 PM   #12
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I can confirm that had Venezuela not imposed their confiscatory taxes, Trinidad probably would still be avoided by cruisers due to its old reputation as a dangerous place for yachts to visit. Never mind that the person most responsible for this reputation had his own agenda; cruisers avoided Trinidad and Tobago like the plague. Back in 1989 or '90 we spent six weeks or more in Trinidad and Tobago, and met only two other cruising boats.

The cruisers who came down to VZ during hurricane season each year spent their money like drunken ....sailors..... on boat haulouts, boat repairs, boat supplies, and restaurants. They put up with a lot of aggravation and quite some petty theft in several places for years, but once the taxes were imposed there was a mass exodus.

I've lost track of the businesses and marinas and boat yards that have opened in Trinidad because Venezuela made it unpleasant for the cruisers. Trinidad has benefitted from the influx of cruisers providing the capital to build an infrastructure that didn't exist in the early 90s.

What governments should pay attention to is that this influx of money is possible without any government assistance or subsidies. It doesn't require that government money be spent to build roads, or run electrical lines, it doesn't have to offer tax cuts or incentives for the businesses to move there, they just follow the yachts.
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