International cruise conference in Charleston comes to an end

An international conference on balancing cruise ship visits with the quality of life in historic port cities ended today without a major breakthrough in Charleston’s ongoing debate, but with many ideas about what to do next.

The conference brought together more than 150 people from port cities across the globe to discuss air pollution, congestion and other ill effects that ever-larger cruise ships are creating —and what can be done to address them.

The World Monuments Fund and the National Trust for Historic Preservation have gone on record expressing concern about the cruise industry’s potential effects in Charleston, and they helped stage the conference with the Preservation Society of Charleston.

One central theme was that those concerned about cruise ships should make more allies.

Port cities also were urged to create a network to share information on cruise ships, to lobby high levels of government and the industry itself and to prevent the industry from playing one port city against another at the negotiating table.