‘Ship Wars’ Dash Hopes of Quick Riches : San Diego Lures Cruise Lines but There’s No Tourism Bonanza

Remember “gas wars,” when stations, faced with a glut of fuel on the market, engaged in furious competition to undercut their competitors by drastically reducing prices at the pump?

Then there were “air fare wars,” when budget carriers offered cut-rate cross-country and international flights, forcing the more established carriers to do the same.

The 1985 version apparently is “ship wars,” with a myriad of new passenger vessels and established cruise lines offering hefty discounts on voyages that several years ago only the rich could have afforded.

That is great news for seagoing travel buffs. But the timing could not be worse for San Diego, which Saturday held its first Homeport Festival to celebrate the inaugural cruise from the city of the Pacific Princess, made famous by the popular “Love Boat” television series.

Based in San Diego

Beginning today the “Love Boat,” with a capacity of 600 travelers, will be home-based in San Diego for 16 weeks each year. It caps a yearlong effort by the San Diego Cruise Ship Consortium, made up of tourism and industry officials, to lure passenger liners to San Diego.

But since the passenger capacity of cruise ships to Mexico has increased four-fold in the last two years, consortium officials admit that for a time at least, there will be empty staterooms on the Pacific Princess and other, smaller, passenger ships that pass through the city.

Despite that, members of the consortium continue to speak in glowing phrases about the economic benefits of providing port facilities for passenger liners that will stop in San Diego or use the city for their home bases.

The Pacific Princess is the first major carrier to make San Diego its home. But Saturday’s maiden voyage did not come close to selling out, and the passengers who do take its trips, for the moment, will be offered discounts of more than 50% off the regular fare.

Scores of travel agents were recruited to fill the empty rooms on the ship for the one-week trip to the Mexican Riviera. Passengers will travel at bargain-basement rates, but Princess line officials hope the agents will convince clients to take the trip at a later date, perhaps when the demand for cruise vacations catches up with the supply and prices escalate.

Don Harrison, spokesman for the consortium, said the “Love Boat,” whose passengers spend about $100 a day when they call at a port, eventually could generate $12 million to $15 million in new revenues for the San Diego economy annually.

“But that’s only an estimate and it presupposed that the ships would be full,” Harrison said. “With the cruise ship wars we’re having now, that might not be the case right off.”

Additional economic riches should come to the city when the passenger liners based in or visiting the city use local dry-dock facilities. And many of the cruise passengers will likely spend additional time in San Diego, boosting local tourist revenues.