Over the last few years my family and I have been on a few cruising holidays around the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas.

When arriving at many of the ports that we called at I noticed that many of these resorts accepted Euros and US Dollars. From what I gather in some of these destinations where the country does not have the Euro as their currency, some have been declared a Euro zone and so this currency is accepted.

Recently I spoke to a member of the Inverclyde public about this and we discussed the possible advantages if Inverclyde, where we have about 30 cruise liners berthing each year could either be declared a Euro zone or if local companies and businesses were able to accept the Euro and the US Dollar, bearing in mind the numbers of passengers and crew who come from the US and Europe. It could help give a further boost to our local economy when the cruise liners are berthed here.

Some people may say that many of the passengers disembarking these liners jump on buses that head to the likes of Edinburgh, Loch Lomond or the Trossachs. But we should not forget the crews that can account for up to a third of the ship's numbers, and many of them will either go ashore and go into Greenock or stay on board the vessels. However, that is still a fair number of visitors that cannot be ignored.

So this could be something that Inverclyde Council and the local Chamber of Commerce could look at to see if this is feasible or practical.

Another idea that could perhaps help generate some income for the district, and for our golf clubs, when the liners are in, is something that I wrote about a few years ago in the Tele and which was accepted by the SNP in our local council election manifesto, and that is that we could offer cruise line passengers, many of who are from the US and who may be keen on a round of golf on some of our courses which offer fantastic views of the Clyde. It could be possible as part of any corporate golf package that transport would be put on, along with lunch and a round of golf before passengers went back to their ship. This is perhaps something that those involved with tours/shore excursions could build into their lists of 'things to do' therefore letting passengers know that golf packages exist in Inverclyde before any liners arrive in Greenock.

It would be interesting to find out what council officials, the Chamber of Commerce, local businesses and the golf clubs think of these two ideas.