Where AI Is Actually Working in Cruise Operations
Artificial intelligence is becoming more visible across the cruise industry in 2026, but some of its most consequential applications remain out of sight. Predictive maintenance, route optimisation, onboard energy management and food forecasting are showing where AI can support day-to-day operations, while recent deployments by MSC Cruises and Virgin Voyages illustrate how selected applications are […]
Can Guyana’s Ports Keep Up With Its Economic Boom?
Guyana is expanding its maritime capacity at a remarkable pace, but demand is rising just as quickly. Vessel traffic has increased by 42% since 2020 and containerised imports have climbed from about 42,000 to nearly 150,000 TEUs a year, while new shore bases, dredging projects and regional trade facilities are reshaping the country’s port system. […]
Can a Port turn Sargassum into a Maritime Value Chain?
French Guiana’s SARGASOL project is testing more than ways to convert sargassum into energy. It raises a broader question for the Caribbean: can ports help turn an unpredictable environmental burden into a reliable industrial feedstock? The Caribbean has no shortage of sargassum. What it lacks is a reliable way to move the biomass from the […]
Latin America ’s Port Leaders Change When Efficiency Enters the Equation
The hierarchy of Latin America and the Caribbean’s container ports looks familiar when measured by volume. Santos leads, followed by Manzanillo, Cartagena and Callao. Change the metric from containers handled to the time ships spend in port, however, and the regional order looks very different. The World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Container Port […]
The multi-port logic Behind Dominican cruise growth
The Dominican Republic is adding more than cruise capacity. New infrastructure in Samaná, year-round homeporting in La Romana and a new destination partnership on Catalina Island are giving different parts of the country increasingly distinct roles in its cruise network. The expansion comes as the country pushes to diversify its port offer and strengthen connections […]
Barbados is raising the bar on Seafarer Compliance
Barbados has approved a sweeping new seafarer framework that reaches well beyond certificates and crew contracts. For a ship registry that has expanded rapidly in recent years, the legislation ties labour protection, training and recruitment more closely to flag-state oversight — while already setting rules for a future workforce operating ships from shore. Barbados is […]
A new economic benchmark is coming for caribbean cruise destinations
More than 30 cruise destinations across the Caribbean and Latin America are entering a new cycle of economic-impact measurement. The initiative, led by Tourism Economics, could give ports and tourism authorities a recurring benchmark for assessing not only what cruise activity contributes today, but how that contribution changes over time. The first studies are due […]
Panama’s next logistics bet is 5–6 Million TEUs of new transshipment capacity
Panama’s port system handled about 9.9 million TEU in 2025, reinforcing its position as one of Latin America’s largest container hubs. Now the country is preparing for another step-change: 5 to 6 million TEU of additional annual transshipment capacity through two proposed terminals, Corozal on the Pacific side and Telfers on the Atlantic. The scale […]
Tecon Santos 10: Can Brazil add capacity without adding concentration?
Brazil’s largest container gateway keeps getting busier. The Port of Santos handled a record 5.9 million TEU in 2025, while its wider cargo throughput reached 186.4 million tonnes. That performance makes the case for additional container capacity increasingly difficult to dispute. The harder question is who should control it. Tecon Santos 10, planned for the […]
A new maritime Rulebook for the world’s leading passenger-ship flag
On April 1, 2026, The Bahamas brought into force a modernised maritime framework built around the Merchant Shipping Act 2021 and a new suite of regulations covering registration, inspections, seafarer standards, maritime labour, safety investigations and technical certification. The reform replaced a legal structure rooted partly in legislation dating back to 1976. For the cruise […]
Mexico’s cruise passenger fee just doubled — Does it change port competitiveness?
Mexico has doubled the effective charge applied to eligible foreign cruise passengers, from the equivalent of US$5 to US$10 per person as of August 1, 2026. The increase comes while the country’s cruise market is still expanding rapidly: Mexican ports handled 6.5 million passengers in the first half of 2026, up 17.1% year on year. […]
The human infrastructure behind Caribbean green shipping
A port can build an ammonia bunkering facility. A shipping company can order a methanol-fuelled vessel. Neither investment delivers much value without people who know how to operate the technology safely. That human dimension is becoming increasingly important as shipping moves toward lower- and zero-emission fuels. From 3 to 7 August 2026, 24 participants from […]