Santa Barbara residents packed inside a cramped meeting room upstairs in the Marine Center classroom at the harbor on Thursday, eager to voice their concerns over the city’s cruise ship program during the latest meeting of the Harbor Commission’s Cruise Ship Subcommittee.
Waterfront Director Mike Wiltshire opened the meeting with a report outlining the economics of the cruise ship program. Since its inception in the early 2000s, the cruise ship program has grown to host 20-30 ships every year, with 2022 marking its busiest year in more than a decade with 30 ships anchoring in Santa Barbara. COVID forced a temporary shutdown of the program in March 2020, with only five ships visiting from 2020-2021.
The Waterfront Department charges $10 per passenger for each ship that anchors offshore, with most ships averaging anywhere between 200 and 3,500 passengers. According to a survey from Visit Santa Barbara in 2016 — the second-busiest season in the past decade with 29 ships — the program had an estimated economic impact of $3.9 million.