By
Rebecca Gibson |
Cruise Europe as an organisation is unique in its geographical spread, from Lisbon to St Petersburg and Iceland, and encompasses an almost equal spread of member ports located within and outside the incoming limitations of the Emission Control Area (ECA) directive. Starting in 1992 with 27 ports, we have grown to a massive 115 members – and counting. Only this year we have been able to recruit 15 more members. This is an achievement of which we are very proud and it makes us even more relevant to the cruise lines.
After many years of growth both in number of calls and visiting passengers, a few of our member ports report a slight dip in the number of cruise calls for 2014.
It looks like we will see the same picture for 2015. Due to the size of ships the number of passengers remains the same, or even goes up, for most ports. We have been aware of this situation for a while. The high cost of marine fuel means slower steaming and less ports are visited during a cruise.
ECA regulations mean that the lines need to burn a cleaner and more expensive fuel in large parts of Europe from January 2015, which also has an impact on our region.
The growing cruise order book is source for optimism, however, and makes very interesting reading.
In late summer Princess Cruises and TUI announced the order of new ships within a few days of each other, taking the total of new cruise ships to be delivered in the next five years to over 30. The majority are large ships – 300m and 100,000gt or more. Some of the newbuilds are considerably larger than this. Our members are keen to offer the cruise lines the right level of infrastructure to attract the ships.
The Cruise Europe monthly newsletter regularly brings stories about port development from all corners of Europe, showing the industry that the ports in our region are investing in infrastructure in order to remain competitive also in the future.
We can offer the cruise lines a super blend of large and modern turnaround ports combined with very attractive ports of call, very often situated close to each other.
If we add that Northern and Atlantic Europe is a very safe region without major geopolitical issues, an all-year cruise destination including world-famous regions and cities, there are many reasons to remain optimistic about the future for our 115 members in Europe north of Gibraltar.
Membership of Cruise Europe enables individual ports to market themselves to the cruise lines in a cost-effective manner, and in particular the smaller and ‘niche’ ports that would not have a budget for large marketing and promotional campaigns.
To assist cruise lines in planning, Cruise Europe produces a Port Handbook, and maintains a website that cruise lines use in planning itineraries.
We also upload news items, new developments and itineraries from our members regularly, and distribute them to key industry players in our newsletter.
Jens Skrede is the managing director of Cruise Europe
This article appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2014 edition of International Cruise & Ferry Review. To read other articles, you can subscribe to the magazine in printed or digital formats.