Cruise: Auspicious beginning trending to surpass 2019

All the cruise ships that had scheduled a visit to some area in Greece are already here. Greece is developing into an important gateway for cruising in the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe and has the potential to grow further, especially if it invests in homeporting and more passenger service infrastructure in ports. This assessment was expressed from Thessaloniki by Pierfrancesco Vago, president of the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) and executive chairman of the industry giant MSC Cruises.

Speaking at the 7th Posidonia Sea Tourism Forum, hosted for the first time in Thessaloniki, Mr. Vago emphasized that the industry weathered the storm of the pandemic and three years after the pandemic crisis returned to normality, with 33 million cruise passengers expected this year internationally and the Eastern Mediterranean to “rise” by 11% compared to 2019.

Optimism for a very good year in the cruise sector

He then referred to data related to cruising that attest to the benefits of the industry to local economies. As he said, each cruise passenger spends an average of 400 euros in restaurants and shops in the places where a cruise ship docks, while especially on the smaller Greek islands each passenger spends at least 100 euros. He mentioned once again that last year Greece managed to surpass the milestone of 1 billion euros in cruise revenue, creating 15,000 (direct and indirect) jobs, while he added that Thessaloniki is now visible on the “map” internationally, with homeporting to the city (using it as a port of departure for round trips) up 54% year-on-year last year.

The CLIA president also made special mention of the growing importance of human talent in the cruise industry, pointing out that training the skills of the next generation of maritime workers is a great opportunity for a maritime nation like Greece.

Reservations

Yu Zhenggang, the president of the Piraeus Port Authority (PPA SA), mentioned the auspicious prospects for the cruise in Greece, both in terms of the port of Piraeus and that of Thessaloniki. The president of PPA SA announced that for 2023 the pre-bookings of cruise ships have already exceeded 800 for the port of Piraeus, of which 80%, i.e. approximately 630-650 ships, will constitute homeporting (in 2022 there were 670 approaches with 880,000 passengers and the percentage of homeporting was 60%).

The executive chairman of Thessaloniki Port Authority SA and managing director Mr. Athanasios Liagos emphasized for his part that Thessaloniki as a destination is experiencing spectacular growth in the cruise sector, with around 70 cruise ship arrivals already scheduled in 2023 and almost half of them being home porting.

High demand

It is estimated that the image of the cruise industry is now very positive, with the prospect that the industry will exceed the results of 2019 this year, as estimated by the CEO of Celestyal Cruises, Chris Theofilidis, who added that the interest of travelers to participate in a cruise is increasing and larger, “much more than pre-pandemic.” Vibke Megger, CEO of TUI Cruises GmbH, expects great demand for the cruise, “even greater than in the past”, this summer.

Marie-Caroline Lorraine, general manager of CLIA Europe, underscored the resilience and dynamism of the cruise, which exceeds the corresponding – overall – tourism in the EU, which will also affect cruise lines, as “we are no longer talking about LNG (liquefied natural gas) but about synthetic biofuels”. “The fact that the Greek government is investing in green hydrogen is great news, but this fuel needs to be usable by the shipping sector and to be able to be stored in ports,” she noted.