Author: (Brendan)
Harbour fees – a charge incurred when you sail your ship from city to city. Sometime a small charge or sometimes a large one. Should we have stable costs?
Buying ships and offering to the public can be a great, profitable business. It’s good for the economy, good for international traders and good for the boat owners. The usual winner though is usually the harbour owner. Everytime a boat pulls up into their harbour, they receive a nice sum of money.
Some fees are high, others are low. People are usually put off from sailing to a certain country if the harbour fees are high, even if the fees are high and the boat owner decides to travel there, the price to use the ship for the consumer will rise significantly. The harbour owners in the same country sometimes try to compete with eachother, to ensure foreign traders decide to travel to their harbour, instead of their competitors. If two people build harbours in the country it is much better for people to buy ships, as prices can be lower to travel back to their home nation.
Some opinions about harbour fees:
-‘I don’t buy ships anymore, the fees to travel are too high.’
-‘Harbour fees make a profit for the harbour owners, if it wasn’t for these people, we wouldn’t be able to travel anyway – they deserve the money.’
-‘Harbour fees should be a set price for everywhere. This way everyone knows where they stand and how much it will cost them to travel. I didn’t like the fact that harbour owners can change the prices – it gives them lots of control over people that have bought their ships who want to travel to Virtua.’
So – Should the fees be a fixed price or should harbour owners be allowed to control the fees? It definitely offers more responsibility, control and options to the harbour owners – but not too good for ship owners.