Two seasons of pain, then a partial recovery
The numbers tell a blunt story. Napier Port has 50 cruise ships booked for the 2026/27 season, a 44% collapse from the record 89 that called in 2023/24. The decline has been relentless season by season: 89, then 78, then 55, and now 50.
The forward book offers cold comfort. Napier Port projects 50 cruises for 2027/28 and 58 for 2028/29, and Hawke’s Bay Tourism general manager Tania Burt confirmed the 2028/29 season “is expected to see an upturn in cruise ship visits”. But read that number carefully. Fifty-eight vessels barely clears the current depressed level of 55, and remains a third below the 89-ship peak. The “recovery” being signalled is not a return to the good times. It is stabilisation at a permanently lower base.
For operators, that means the 2026/27 and 2027/28 seasons are a structural revenue gap, not a soft patch to ride out.
The economics that are draining away
Cruise is not marginal money for Hawke’s Bay. Napier Port’s half-year accounts to 31 March 2026 recorded $6.4 million in cruise revenue from 54 vessels, and that is just the port’s cut. The wider regional spend flows through tour operators, transport firms, hospitality and the retailers of Napier’s Art Deco precinct.
Nationally, the MBIE cruise impact research released in March 2025 put 2023/24 cruise spending at $648 million excluding GST and fuel, around 6% of all international visitor spending, contributing $572 million to GDP and supporting 8,790 jobs directly and indirectly. With wider linkages, that reaches $800 million and 11,935 jobs. New Zealand cruise deployment has since fallen around 40% nationwide from that peak. This is not a rounding error. It is a large chunk of the visitor economy walking out the door.
CEO Todd Dawson pointed to one offset. In 2025/26, roughly 86,000 passengers visited across 55 vessels because the ships were bigger. “While vessel numbers were lower than in previous years, the ships visiting Napier were larger on average, carrying more passengers and generating higher revenue per cruise ship call,” Dawson said. Bigger ships help the port’s per-call maths. They do not fill the gap for a tour operator who has lost a third of his sailings.
This is a policy problem, not a demand problem
Here is the part that should anger any business owner watching this happen. The passengers still want to come. According to the New Zealand Cruise Association, demand from passengers was not the issue; the problem was restoring cruise lines’ confidence to deploy their ships here.
The association identified four structural drivers behind the retreat: rising government, port and council costs; regulatory changes introduced after itineraries were already sold, so cruise lines cannot pass the costs on; biosecurity and operational complexity; and a growing perception that New Zealand has become difficult and unpredictable. As its spokesperson put it, “Ships are moveable assets and will generally be deployed where operators feel welcome, where requirements are clear and consistent, and where itineraries remain commercially viable.”
Dawson said the same, noting cruise lines had raised concerns about the cost and complexity of operating here, including border charges, regulatory settings and biofouling requirements. The MBIE report reached the identical conclusion, listing regulatory change, limited responsiveness during engagement, biosecurity complexity and rising operational costs. When the port, the industry body and the government’s own research all point at the same causes, the diagnosis is not in dispute.
Stop treating cruise as guaranteed demand
The honest takeaway for Hawke’s Bay operators came from Napier City Business general manager Pip George. “Cruise passengers remain an important part of the visitor economy, but they are just one part of a much bigger picture,” George said, arguing the focus must shift to giving locals, domestic visitors and international tourists “a compelling reason to visit, spend and return”.
That is the pragmatic response, and businesses exposed to cruise should be diversifying now rather than pencilling in a 2028 rebound that only gets them back to today’s diminished level. But diversification is a coping strategy, not a cure. The next Carnival Splendor, carrying more than 3,000 passengers, docks in Napier in October 2026, a reminder of what the sector can still deliver when the ships turn up. Whether more of them return depends less on Napier’s operators and more on whether Wellington fixes the costs, the biofouling rules and the regulatory unpredictability that pushed the fleet away in the first place.