To: All News Directors and Interested Parties Contact: Amy Powers, Director, 207-310-0998

Date: August 22, 2003

Bar Harbor Chamber Receives Results of Passenger Surveys

Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce has received the final report of the 2002 cruise ship passenger survey they commissioned from the University of Maine system.

In short the following keypoints were established:
Number of Ships during 2002 season – 64
Total number of passengers and crew for season ­ 120,000
Number of passengers and crew surveyed ­ 2,332
Average spending per cruiseship passenger ­ $105.82

The cruise industry accounted for 10% of the total revenues earned by retail stores and restaurants in all of 2002, but a full 64% of retail and 26% of restaurants in the month of October.

Passengers accounted for a full $12.1 million in sales in Bar Harbor in 2002 including multiplier effects and supported over 275 full and part-time jobs. These are just some of the highlights.  The survey in it’s entirety is providing a wealth of information about passenger demographics and additional key findings will be extracted from the survey to be further analyzed.  A copy of the pdf file in downloadable in the Economic Impact section of this website.