Inside a Business Sydney and CLIA lunch overlooking Circular Quay, CLIA global CEO Bud Darr laid out the economics behind why cruise lines choose one destination over another and what it would take for Sydney to climb back up the list.
The lunch was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, with two cruise ships docked at Circular Quay in view through the windows.
Have you ever thought about how important cruise ships are to the Australian economy? If you haven’t, consider this: a cruise ship that’s currently docked at the Quay will depart with 300,000 eggs to feed onboard guests, along with 4,000 apples, 2,000 kg of potatoes and 1,000 bunches of bananas. And it doesn’t stop there. According to a recent report (see below), the total spend by cruise lines in Australia is $1.5 billion a year. In short, every cruise that comes here supports thousands of Australian businesses. I’d never thought of cruise ships in that way and perhaps you haven’t either. And the effect of cruise ships is a total economic output of $7.32 billion for our economy and 22,720 full-time jobs.
Australian cruise economy at a glance
2024–25 financial year, national figures
| Metric | Figure |
| Total economic output | $7.32 billion |
| FTE jobs supported | 22,720 |
| Total wages income | $2.36 billion |
| Direct expenditure by passengers, crew and cruise lines | $3.38 billion |
| Passenger visit days in Australian ports and destinations | 4.14 million |
| Australian ports and destinations visited | 56 |
| Ship visit days recorded around Australia | 1,700 |
Source: Australian Paddock to Port Alliance, “Paddock to Port: The Australian jobs, businesses and communities behind every cruise visit”, Economic Impact Report, FY2024–25.
On Wednesday 2 September, Business Sydney and the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) gathered industry and business leaders at the Museum of Contemporary Art last week for a lunch marking the start of the summer cruise season. The substance came from a Q&A between Bud Darr, CLIA’s Global President and CEO, and Karen Jones, Chief Executive of Destination NSW — a candid account of how much sits behind the decision of where a cruise ship goes next.
Paul Nicolaou, Business Sydney, welcoming a full room to the lunch.
Ships go where the obstacles aren’t
Bud Darr, Global President and CEO of CLIA, in conversation with Karen Jones, CEO of Destination NSW.
Darr’s starting point was blunt: rankings are a symptom, not a cause. What decides whether Sydney climbs or falls is capital. The largest ships now cost as much as US$2.2 billion to build, and every operator is chasing a return on that asset. “Those investments do need to be deployed in order to get the ROI,” Darr said. “I’ve only got so many ships, I can only go so many places. We do see growth in the industry. It is coming. Those ships have to go somewhere.”
Once a ship is going somewhere, the calculus is simple: destination and value are almost the only things that matter. “All the other things we talk about are not even secondary. They’re further down the list, except for value,” he said. That includes regulatory friction. Itineraries are planned up to three years out and sold 18 to 24 months ahead — “as I sit here today, from the cruise industry’s perspective, it might as well be September 2029,” Darr said — so operators favour destinations offering a predictable cost and policy environment over cheaper but riskier ones.
He contrasted Dubrovnik, where a mayor who “had a big problem” worked with the industry on roughly half a dozen practical fixes — “things that were pretty common sense, logical, and reasonably implementable by both sides” — with destinations that treat cruise tourism as a political football. Of those, he was blunt: “I’ve got nothing for you. I can’t help with that.” Sydney’s real competition, he added, isn’t other Australian ports — it’s every other operating canvas a ship could sail to instead.
Guests spend heavily the moment they’re docked
The economic case starts with what passengers actually spend on the ground. According to the Australian Paddock to Port Alliance’s latest Economic Impact Report, passengers, crew and cruise lines spent $3.38 billion directly in Australia in the 2024–25 financial year, across 4.14 million passenger visit days at 56 ports and destinations, over 1,700 ship visit days.
Destination NSW’s Karen Jones noted that spend is currently concentrated: at the peak of the season, with ships arriving multiple times a day, foot traffic bunches heavily around The Rocks as passengers grab a last coffee before boarding or reunite with family after disembarking. The shared challenge, she said, is dispersing that flow — and the spending that comes with it — further into the city and the state, rather than letting it circle the same few blocks near the Quay.
The Australian Paddock to Port Alliance’s Economic Impact Report, launched at the lunch.
Onshore jobs, and heavy demand for local product
Beyond passenger spend, the Paddock to Port report puts the cruise sector’s total economic output at $7.32 billion nationally in FY2024–25, supporting 22,720 full-time-equivalent jobs and $2.36 billion in wages. That flow-through reaches well beyond the ships themselves: provisioning, hospitality, transport, accommodation and retail all draw on it, with the Alliance saying the impact reached communities in every coastal state and territory.
It’s that provisioning demand — produce, seafood, wine, linens, fuel — that makes cruise ships a de facto customer of onshore supply chains every time they dock, not just a source of tourist foot traffic.
The work still to do
None of this flow-through is guaranteed, Darr said. It’s the output of a global competition for a finite number of extremely expensive ships, decided by demand, value, regulatory stability and a destination’s willingness to surprise a younger, more discerning passenger. Sydney has the obvious assets — the harbour, the icons, strong homegrown demand. Whether it climbs back from 11th in global cruise consideration rankings, or wherever it truly sits, may come down to the less obvious ones: a shore experience nobody expected to love, a fee structure nobody quietly resents, and a policy environment stable enough that an operator can commit to Sydney for a ship it won’t even build for another three years.
So next time a cruise ship glides past the Heads loaded with eggs, apples and potatoes, remember it’s loading up something bigger too: a $7.32 billion vote of confidence in the Australian economy.
