Portsmouth port's brand new terminal extension
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00:19 Okay, so my name's Andrew Williamson, I'm the head of the Cruising Ferry at Port St.
00:22 Paul's International Port, and you're standing in our main terminal building at the entrance
00:26 point to our new terminal annex behind me, which will be opening on Sunday for ready
00:30 for cruise passengers. So the new facilities are first class. Our aim is to attract the
00:37 luxury boutique cruise market to the port. Our new terminal now reflects that in the
00:42 facilities inside the terminal, first class finishes, environmentally sustainable building
00:47 throughout from having living walls as you can see behind me throughout the building,
00:52 deep water cooling systems, wind exchangers and solar panels. I'm Mike Sellers, I'm the
00:59 Port Director for Portsmouth International Port. Where I'm stood now connects our original
01:05 passenger terminal to our new passenger terminal extension. So if you were a passenger going
01:12 on a ferry or on a cruise, you could be coming through this tunnel through security onto
01:20 your holiday. And we built this really to cater not only for the cross channel ferries
01:26 as a second departure gate, but also as a cruise terminal. And Portsmouth has certainly
01:35 over the last recent years, really gained a niche market with high end boutique, expedition
01:43 cruising as well as those transit calls, the tourist calls, where passengers will come
01:48 into the city and spend money at Gunwulf Quays or Spinnaker Tower etc.
01:56 So for the city itself, how much of a boom would it be for people who are port to land
02:03 businesses? So this is really exciting news, not just for the port because we're only a
02:06 small catalyst really of what will happen from an economic development part. We expect
02:13 by next year that we will break over 100 cruise calls. Each one of those cruise ships generates
02:19 a million and a half to the Portsmouth economy. And that can be everything from hotels to
02:27 tourism to contractors to the work that's needed as and when the ships arrive to the
02:33 work and what people do here at the port. So there's a real opportunity here to gain
02:39 quite a significant economic opportunity for the city.
02:44 Excellent. So in regards to that, how will it be for Portsmouth's tourism trade?
02:51 So what we aim to do as part of this and the fact that we were part of that levelling up
02:55 bid is attract cruise calls into the city and they will have passengers. So a good example
03:03 of that, only a couple of weeks ago we had the biggest ever ship that came into Portsmouth,
03:09 the Mineshift 3, that was carrying 2,700 passengers. Only a small proportion of those went on organised
03:17 tours. The rest of them went into the city. I think there were 2,300 passengers that went
03:23 into Portsmouth to the city to the tourist attractions that we have there. And they will
03:27 spend money in the city and all of that generates the income and those opportunities. And that's
03:32 just one ship. We're going to attract 100 of those next year and we aim to go up to
03:38 200 in the next few years.
03:41 I'm extremely proud. I'm proud of the team. I'm proud of the project management, the contractors,
03:48 everything that's been delivered that we see here today, ready for that first ship that's
03:52 going to arrive on Sunday. This is a huge opportunity for Portsmouth. We have found
03:58 a niche market in terms of high-end boutique, expedition cruising and those passengers
04:05 expect a level and this terminal without a doubt is the next level as a passenger terminal.
04:12 Hello, I'm Gerald Fannin-Jackson. I'm the Cabinet Member for Transport at Portsmouth
04:17 City Council. We're here at the new cruise terminal at the port. So this is where people
04:25 will come in and check in to the new, when they're going on a cruise holiday and when
04:30 they'll come back. We've got about 100 cruise ships booked in this year, more next
04:34 year and it's great. We're not aiming to do what St Hampton do. We're aiming to do
04:38 something different to have not the huge ships but have the smaller high-end boutique ships
04:45 that come in with people spending a lot of money. And because we can offer something
04:49 that is exclusive to them, we only do one cruise ship at a time. We're different from
04:54 St Hampton. So the investment here with a really wonderful cruise terminal, hopefully
05:00 it's a great place for cruise companies to come and see that it's really good to
05:05 start your cruise here in Portsmouth or finish it or just visit. And it's been very successful.
05:11 We've got more and more cruise ships coming here and it's just great for the city.
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05:59 (cymbal crash)