One very bright forecast for the coming – and all-important – tourism season in Greece is the prospect of a new record in terms of cruise ship arrivals to ports in the east Mediterranean country.
According to the latest figures of pre-bookings and information released by port authorities – especially the Piraeus Port Authority – 752 vessels have already requested docking rights in 2022, a number only in the latter. Of the figure, 575 cruise ships will use Piraeus as their home port, with the rest using it as “transit”.
By comparison, in 2019 – a banner year for Greek tourism – 622 cruise ships docked at the port of Piraeus, Greece’s biggest and largest port facility and the greater Athens area’s maritime hub.
The subsequent year, Covid-19 battered 2020, witnessed a disastrous 88-percent reduction in the number of cruises vessels docking in Piraeus, compared to 2019.
In terms of other ports, 242 dockings of cruise vessels have already been booked for the port of Irakleio, on Crete, compared to 205 two years ago; 489 compared to 416 in 2019 for the Ionian island of Corfu; 103 bookings so far for Hania, also on Crete, compared to 130 for all of 2019.
The northern metropolis of Thessaloniki is also developing into a cruise destination, with 53 vessels scheduled to arrive in 2022, compared to a paltry six in 2019.
The first cruise ship to dock in Thessaloniki, in fact, arrived a few days ago, namely, the Viking Cruises’ “Viking Sky”.
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