In last month’s PART X of our monthly series of reports on the impact the upcoming home port will have on the economy of our little slice of paradise by the sea, we hope you may have begun to realize that said impact will be 
greater, wider, longer, deeper, more angular, higher, more inner and inter-twined, intricately webbed and woven than you could have reasonably imagined .
What’s more, as the jetty—all we have to show the world at this moment in time—continues to materialize before our eyes, we shall also continue to share additional, more detailed facts that we promise will grow in mass and complexity equivalent to the progress of the home port project itself throughout its development. As we’ve tried to drill home previously, these facts are available from over 40 years of meticulously kept marketing, service, mechanical, and growth statistics which, arguably, the cruise industry has maintained better and more consistently than any other industry since they began
floating humans in luxury from continent to continent.
If what we promise tells you anything about the impact we can expect from a home port, it should create a clear and sharply focused image of a Puerto Peñasco future changed so rapidly and radically it could be absent even any of those ceremonious reminiscences of the way we remembered this area as a small fishing village, occasionally conquered by weekend beach addicts of such a fun-loving culture that today we’ve come to love and appreciate.
So much accurate and important information—especially in the areas of marketing and customer service—exists that present day vendors and service providers can literally scribe training manuals based on absolute fact, and deliver that training as far in advance of the first arrivals as they wish. This is a really good thing, too, because it gives a home port time to produce a cadre of full service professionals in every related industry that will be called into service from the very first departure.
Information stands stocked with colorful, informative accurate information will be available in abundant quantities to help new visitors make good decisions about what they can do while in our port city. Just to make a comparison of how important this seemingly minor service niche can be to a destination, let’s consider that, in place of a cruise departure port as the attraction, we had a wild animal park, a “swim with the dolphins” attraction and deep sea fishing.
First, the visitor would be here for an entirely different basic reason, not to take a cruise. How did we get those tourists in town—probably the same way we have for the last several decades—through a weather and economics dependant marketing strategy. Why would they return next year? You may see the issues here. We have questions but no educated, proven answers from which to predict the future decision making on the part of our potential repeat visitors.
With a home port on the other hand, we know for a fact, proven over 40 years of marketing studies, that over 60% of cruise passengers use cruising as a means to decide on future vacation destinations. You can’t get much more valuable information than this if you’re in the resort, attraction or food and beverage business. If that weren’t enough, most cruise passengers arrive 1.5 days before the cruise departure and use local transportation, local tour operators, eat at nice restaurants, and many decide to stay a couple of days longer when their cruise ship returns the next week.
They decide to bring their extended families along the next time they cruise. By the way, most cruisers don’t cruise every single year (although the trend is developing into that—mainly because cruise ships have become so state-of-the-art comfortable, entertaining—ridiculously entertaining—and amenity equipped, that the cruise ship in itself is a bona fide vacation destination with every vacation activity imaginable. Most cruisers will intersperse a cruise with a land vacation every other year.
We’ll list just some of those next month before we dive head first into how far down (or up) the scale of economy just one cruise family can spread their expenditures and revenue.
We’ll also discover where a surprising source of completely new-found revenue will be coming from without our city having to expend even one peso!
DOWN BY THE PIER
In the midst of all the resumed activity at the pier, we didn’t personally touch base with our fountain of information, Wendy Winzer, Project Administrator. But we did have a meaningful telephone conversation to catch us up on where they’re at with the pier.
We also want to thank Eric Brown for his great photos covering everything from the cube molds to the giant rebar frames being assembled out in the open space on the way to Wrecked or Mare Blu. They certainly get the point across as to the size of this project!
In our Home Port X blog Wendy mentioned they would need a total of 73,000 one ton concrete cubes to complete
the need for that size cube. There are approximately 6,000 poured right now. They will also need approximately 8,000 of the 10 ton cubes, of which they now have approximately 400 and are waiting on the arrival of more molds for both sizes.
In the meantime, the truck activity you see along the pier involves continued dumping of the small quarry rock (called “Nucleo”). However, things are about to change because the giant crane has finally arrived that will be assembled and able to lift and haul the one tonners for placement along the pier.
The other progress made involves the gigantic rebar formed columnar frames which have begun to be assembled and will be placed along the pier. They will “plant” 140 of these giants and pump the precision-mixed concrete into them. They will eventually be covered with a roofing to protect the passenger building materials from the sun. The pouring of these columns is going to be quite a sight! In fact, it seems that every stage from this point, since they are dealing in objects weighing multiples of tons, will be an attention grabbing activity.
Eric has kindly volunteered his photos for us to use and we look forward to the new ones for next month’s PART XII blog.
This blog is powered by www.sonoranresorts.mx, Jim Ringquist, Director of Sales and Marketing.