Vancouver’s downtown core is going to be extremely busy over the next two weeks.

Last year, the Port of Vancouver welcomed 842,928 cruise passengers on 236 vessel visits. This reflects a 2% growth since 2016. Each ship brings an average of $3 million to the local economy.

What’s more, cruise ship arrivals are projected to increase in 2018 by 6% to nearly 900,000 passengers.

Yesterday, Sunday, May 6th, the cruise ship season swung into full gear with three of Holland America Line’s classic vessels.

Canada Place saw the arrival of Westerdam, Noordam, and Zandaam. Although each of these ships are considered midsize, they carry incredible capacities. All three of them have passenger capacities well over 1,000, and this excludes a sizeable crew.

So, when these ships disembark in the waterfront area, all within mere hours of one another, you can expect a great deal of foot traffic. In addition, the area will be flooded with taxis, as well shuttles and other vehicles.

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Cruise Ship Passengers

In total, there will be 13 large cruise ships arriving at Canada Place over the course of 9 days. And, these ships will carry approximately 50,000 passengers in total.

On Wednesday, two ships from Princess Cruises as well as one Holland America Line ship will disembark at Canada Place. As a result, there will be a great deal of passenger traffic at the port.

With that in mind, peak crowding takes place next weekend. On Saturday, May 12th, three large ships disembark at the port. Next, four large vessels disembark on Sunday, May 13th.

As such, that weekend will a massive influx of tourists as well as automotive traffic in the downtown core.

Vancouver’s tourism industry contributes approximately $4.8 billion the regional economy annually and over more than 70,000 full-time jobs.