A cruise ship docks in Santa Barbara waters on Wednesday, the first since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a public health emergency. Eleven more arrive this spring . While the vast majority of passengers tend to be domestic, fears are bubbling in Santa Barbara about the threat of cruise ship passengers, some of them international, bringing the virus onshore. Anxieties surged with the news about the Diamond Princess vessel in Japan, responsible for the spread of the virus from 10 people to 700 kept in quarantine aboard the ship for two weeks.
“Were I in charge, I would not let one more cruise ship dock here. It is an invitation to disaster if just one person on any given ship is a carrier!” wrote Ernest Salomon in a letter to Mayor Cathy Murillo. Salomon, for many years a Santa Barbara booster and critic before retiring from public access television, added, “Government has to come out with a positive statement.” He is concerned 35,000 or more travelers and crew members could come ashore by spring, “and the city isn’t meeting about this until March 10. This is a serious thing.”
But banning big ships is not so simple. Cruise ships in Santa Barbara contribute almost $4 million to the economy. Passengers’ reported spending averages $110 per party, according to a 2016 Visit Santa Barbara survey, the most recent commissioned by the tourism promotion group.