Active Holiday Photos and Stories

Galapagos cruise boats in calm waters

Radical changes to Galapagos cruises have today been proposed by the Galapagos National Park authority.

The headline is that all boats move from the current 7 night cycle to 14 night itineraries from 1st February 2011. The actual notification which came through to us is as follows:

“The Galapagos National Park has issued a notice to all Galapagos operators informing that, as of February 1st, 2011 all Galapagos vessels must operate with 15-day/14-night itineraries, which can be cut into two 7-night itineraries or as two 6-day/5 night and one 5-day/4-night itinerary.

The purpose of this measure is to re-arrange all itineraries in an orderly way, to control the number of persons visiting a determined visitor site at a given time.  Each vessel has to present its proposed itinerary for approval by the GNP, who will then assign the visitor sites according to each individual site’s acceptable load of visitors.”

Currently almost all boats operate on a 7 night cycle with the exception of Beagle and, more recently, Angelito. Moving to 14 nights would mean a more even spread of traffic to visitor sites. What I don’t know is if  that’s a good thing or not.

Currently you have some busy sites around the central islands and then some far less busy sites out around the western side of Isabela Island or up at Genovesa. Presumably this move means all Galapagos cruises move towards a common denominator.

Is that a highest or lowest common denominator though?

The US National Parks system is, in my opinion, rightly lauded for its front country/back country approach. Since you can’t stop people visiting, and visiting in numbers, you basically set aside 5% or so of a National Park and sacrifice it to the masses – the ‘front country’. You then protect the 95% ‘back country’ with a strict system of permits and controls. It’s a high pragmatic mix of conservation and damage limitation.

It seems to me that this latest move by the Galapagos National Park authority starts to move away from this model towards a more general ‘spread ‘em thin’ approach.

However, saying that, landing sites in the Galapagos Islands are very tightly controlled with markers showing you the path you are allowed to tread and guides who know about minimising impact. That is to say that each individual visitor site within the Galapagos Islands actually works on the basis of front and back country.

So whereas this latest move appears to go against the received wisdom when you look at the Galapagos Islands as a single entity, zoom in a little and there is perhaps no contradiction at all.

What I can confidently say is that it means that you can expect a much greater variety of choice for Galapagos cruises in the near future. Boats will not be able to visit any indivual site more than once every two weeks so they will be creating much more nuanced and interesting itineraries for consumers who can take a full 14 nights to explore.

The downside of this is complexity. Consumers currently have a fairly straightforward and wide choice of Galapagos cruises. Itineraries vary but they are all based on 7 nights. You can currently enjoy a comprehensive Galapagos experience in just 7 nights.

Come February 2011, a 7 night cruise will no longer be comprehensive. Presumably no boat operator is going to go off and do all the amazing stuff on week 1, leaving week 2 as a bit of a filler. They are going to try to ensure that both weeks are equally highlight packed.

That means that to get a comprehensive overview of the range of islands, you are likely to have to commit to at least a 10 or 11 night cruise, more likely 14 nights.

This is really quite clever.

One of the objectives of the National Park Authority is to reduce the number of flight arrivals without reducing the number of visitors i.e. income. With this plan, they could potentially slash the number of individuals arriving in the islands without reducing the number of people in the islands at any one time. You will notice that the new plan effectively bans 3 night itineraries. Any plan which moves people towards longer stays in the islands has to be a good thing.

To illustrate the numbers: boat A currently offers 3 and 4 night cruises. Over the course of 2 weeks a cabin could be home to 4 different couples – 8 individuals arriving on 4 flights, departing on 4 flights. If you can instead sell that cabin to just 1 couple for the full fortnight then you’ve got 2 individuals i.e. 25% of the arrivals into the Galapagos islands without impacting the number of visitors present in the islands at any given moment. 1 flight in, 1 flight out.

As specialist tour operators to the Galapagos Islands, we are really going to earn our salt by walking people through the options. That’s an opportunity for us, we can really add value to consumers in helping them choose the right Galapagos cruise. I think that is already the case now, it’s just going to get a lot more true should this rule come into force.

Consumers are going to have to take time to be more educated and selective. That can’t be a bad thing. They are going to have to commit to longer trips in order to get full value from a vist to the Islands. That is no bad thing. The great bulk of cost associated with a holiday to the Galapagos islands is in getting there anyway. I am always trying to persuade people to avoid short stays on the islands.

Environmentally, as long as each site remains well managed then there should be minimal impact. Reducing the number of flight arrivals in the Galapagos is an important move both in carbon reduction but also in reducing the risks of introducing invasive species.

Whilst I would be hating life right now if I worked in the logistics/planning department of any of the Galapagos cruise ships, on balance I think this move has our stamp of approval. (What a relief for the Galapagos National Park. They’ll sleep easier tonight!)

It does prove that the new leadership of the National Park is both pragmatic and brave. That’s not a bad combination.

Find out more about our Galapagos Cruise holidays or read our guide to the Galapagos Islands.