Riverboat companies to shut down cruises on Mississippi

The Queens are dead. The Majestic America Line's flagship sternwheel riverboats, the American Queen and the Mississippi Queen, will not cruise the big rivers of the central United States this year.

And the Majestic America Line's main competitor, RiverBarge Excursions, has also called it quits, ending the cruises of its River Explorer.

Both companies cited the poor economy, with a combination of rising costs and low numbers of tourists, for the shutdowns.

With them go hundreds of visitors that took time from their expensive river cruises to visit downtown Cape Girardeau's shops and restaurants. The loss comes on the heels of announcements that Libertyfest, the Cape Girardeau Independence Day celebration focused on the river, is on hold and the Cape Girardeau Regional Air Festival, an annual favorite at the airport south of the city, is canceled.

The city's top tourism official, Chuck Martin of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, hopes he will be able to announce some good news next week. The Missouri Division of Tourism will announce the cities hosting the 2009 Tour of Missouri bicycle race, and Martin said he believes Cape Girardeau's bid was a strong one.

"I am a big believer in the old adage that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade," Martin said. "A whole lot of these things are noncontrollable items. I like to see the boats coming, especially the Queens. I hate to see all that come to an end. Fortunately for us, we do have an awful lot of other things to offer."

Repeated rounds of high water cut the number of times the cruise ships docked at Cape Girardeau in 2008. Majestic America had already lost the ability to operate its oldest boat, the Delta Queen, due to a federal law that bans overnight excursion boats with wooden superstructures. The Delta Queen operated for years with an exemption to that law, but Congress was unwilling to extend it.

The visitors who reached Cape Girardeau on the river cruises were a small but important part of the total tourism picture for the city. With cruises costing $3,000 to $5,000 or more and taking seven to 10 days to complete, they generally were filled with well-to-do people who had time to devote to travel, Martin said.

Stops by the boats were, on many occasions, a daytime visit for several hours or, at most, an overnight docking. And while it is difficult to know exactly how many visitors who first saw Cape Girardeau from the river returned for another visit, Martin is convinced that some did so. "It is extremely difficult because we do not get their names and phone numbers, but we've had more than a few people visit our offices who mentioned that they would come back."

To deal with the challenging economy, the Convention and Visitor's Bureau is spending more on advertising the city to nearby cities and less on a wider regional market, Martin said.

"We have definitely tightened our radius as far as reaching out to the audience," he said. "Travel is driven by disposable income, and while people are not eliminating travel, they are not traveling as far."

The Tour of Missouri drew more than 400,000 people to events along the route in 2008, according to figures from the Missouri Division of Tourism. That interest, along with an online audience that included log-ins from 99 countries, is an excellent place to market Cape Girardeau, Martin said.

The city's biggest draw is cultural and historic tourism, Martin said, citing events such as the Storytelling Festival in April, the Red House Interpretive Center and Bollinger Mill. In addition, he said, the CVB continues to land amateur sports tournaments that help fill city hotel rooms in the summer months.

"Cultural tourism, by and large, is what we hang our hat on," Martin said.

rkeller@semissourian.com

388-3642

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