Cruise Passenger:
Meet and Greets
Portsmouth International Port is welcoming ever more cruise passengers to the city, and Shaping Portsmouth’s Cruise Passenger Programme teamed up with Portsmouth Ambassadors to Meet and Greet these passengers and tell them all about the wonderful things they can do here.
From 1st April to 3rd October 2022, there have been 19 Meet and Greets hosted by the programme for transit calls where tourists get off and then back on the ship in Portsmouth within the same day, giving us the opportunity to host them (and provide ways of them spending money as well as enjoying our beautiful city).
During these 19 transit calls 4,396 tourists came off these ships onto land, not including crew. Whilst not all passengers were met by our volunteers as a percentage had pre-booked an excursion, we still met large numbers of groups on each day a call came in.
There have been 16 maiden calls by new ships to Portsmouth during 2022, including 5 new cruise line brands visiting the city for the first time.
We currently have 14 trained and active Portsmouth Ambassador volunteers who are on a live rota to host these Meet and Greets, with a further 8 awaiting training.
We also have the demographic of each ship which helps us better understand and prepare – for example when a German ship is in port, we provide German-speaking volunteers.
The port welcomes our volunteer’s feedback, of which some parts have been put in place straight away – for example ensuring the gift shop is open, providing a direct phone line for a taxi service, improving directional and information signage, and changing the route of the shuttle bus depending on the demographic, such as young families with pre-school age children will now be dropped & picked up on the seafront.
