Ports & destinations
Panama City aims to attract homeport business
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- Written by Teijo Niemelä Teijo Niemelä
- Category: Ports & Destinations Ports & Destinations
- Published: 18 August 2015 18 August 2015
Alan Lam reporting
Panama’s tourism authority (Autoridad de Turismo de Panamá or ATP) has initiated new efforts aiming at attracting major cruise lines to consider homeporting in Panama City.
Gustavo Him, who recently replaced Jesús Sierra as the Administrator of ATP, met with executives from both Royal Caribbean y Carnival Cruises aiming at finding a path to increase cruise homeport business in Panama City. “The expansion of Panama Canal and the introduction of new routes by airlines like Copa,” said Gustavo Him, during the meeting, “are clear demonstrations of Panama being a viable homeport for cruise lines.”
The economic case for being a homeport was clear, as the number of tourists arriving in Panama would increase dramatically. It was mentioned that, for example, a cruise ship with the capacity of 2,500 passengers chose to homeport in Panama City, it would generate 125,000 additional visitors per annum; most of these will stay between one and three days before or after the cruise.
The new initiative is aimed largely at the Latin American source market. It is stipulated that one of the principle attractions of Panama for Latin American visitors is shopping, which will benefit the economy of the city enormously. Moreover the city has an array of attractions for cruise tourism, such as the Canal, the Museum of Biodiversity, and the famous Casco Antiguo.
ATP is currently formulating specific strategies in attracting tourism in general to the country; making Panama City a cruise homeport is one of these.
Major investment announced for Xiamen cruise homeport
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- Written by Teijo Niemelä Teijo Niemelä
- Category: Ports & Destinations Ports & Destinations
- Published: 15 August 2015 15 August 2015
Alan Lam reporting
The cruise business ambition of Xiamen, China’s southern city, has just received a boost as the local Reform and Development Commission announces a RMB1 billion investment plan to transform the current cargo terminals into a cruise homeport.
Considered to be modern China’s most habitable city, Xiamen attracts increasing number of international cruise calls every year. It has benefitted from recent record-breaking growth of cruise traffics in the Taiwan Strait. So much so that the sufficiency of its existing, relatively new passenger terminal is in doubt for the coming years.
Prior to this announcement, the city has already been upgrading its four cruise berths to accommodate vessels of up to 220,000 gross tons. To attract future homeporting, much more investment is needed.
This latest plan will be a major project, covering an area of 47.1 hectares, its boundaries will reach Haicang Bridge in the north, Yundang Lake in the south, Dongdu Wharf in the west and Dongdu Road in the east. The first phase alone will include four cruise berths, a passenger inspection building, an entertainment centre, a business centre and a cruise service centre. The development forms a key part of the so-called Xiamen Southeast International Shipping Centre scheme, which aims at turning the city into a global shipping bub and boosting its shipping logistics and tourism businesses.
The goal is to transform Xiamen into a specialised world class cruise homeport, while moving the displaced cargo business to the neighbouring ports of Fuzhou and Meizhou, the province’s other two major seaports.
Under the plan one container and three bulk berths in Dongdu District will be reassigned into one 150,000 gross ton and two 100,000 gross ton cruise berths.
To facilitate this development, the city will also concurrently undertake various major transport infrastructure upgrades.
Record number of cruise tourists arriving in Spain
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- Written by Teijo Niemelä Teijo Niemelä
- Category: Ports & Destinations Ports & Destinations
- Published: 13 August 2015 13 August 2015
Alan Lam reporting
The Spanish public port control body, Puertos del Estado, has just released the latest set of half-yearly figures demonstrating that the country may be on course to set a new record for the total number of annual cruise tourists arriving at its ports.
In the first six months of 2015 Spain received 3.54 million of cruise tourists, a nearly 9% increase on the 3.2 million of the same period last year. About 2 million of those arrived through its Mediterranean ports, which enjoyed a 6.5% increase on 2014, with Barcelona, Málaga, Valencia and the Balearic Islands taking the lion’s share of 1.96 million.
The Canary Islands have continued to gain market share. With 1.11 million in the first half of 2015, a 9.4% increase on the same period last year. The number of cruise tourists to these islands now represents 31.6% of the national total.
375,781 passengers arrived in remaining Spanish Atlantic ports, representing about 10.6% of the national total, with Cádiz, Vigo and A Coruña being most in demand. These three ports have together attracted 311,682 passengers during this period.
Despite the relatively smaller number, the Spanish Atlantic islands (excluding the Canary Islands) enjoyed a 19.7% increase in number on the previous year.
From January to June, Spanish ports received 1,646 cruise calls, with average passenger number per ship somewhere between 3,500 and 4,500, about 1,000 higher than a decade ago when the number was between 2,500 and 3,500.
According to its port authorities, Autoridades Portuarias, Spain’s cruise tourist number could reach 8.1 million for the whole of 2015, surpassing the existing record of 8 million set in 2011.
Lisbon expects 10% increase in cruise traffic for 2015
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- Written by Teijo Niemelä Teijo Niemelä
- Category: Ports & Destinations Ports & Destinations
- Published: 14 August 2015 14 August 2015
Alan Lam reporting
During a recent visit to the capital’s cruise terminal, Antonio Pires de Lima, Portugal’s Minister of Economy, forecast that Lisbon’s cruise business would grow by 10% in 2015, as compared to 2014.
The minister stipulated that the aim was to “specialise” and convert the city into a “port of entry for future cruise tourism of the country”. He stressed the importance of cruise business for Lisbon by underlining the fact that 90% of tourists coming to the city on cruise ships considered repeating the visit and staying longer.
The minister also highlighted that foreign cruise guests spent about 200 euros a day in the city, thus making this form of tourism “more and more interesting for Lisbon”.
During the first six months of this year, 193,938 cruise tourists arrived in Lisbon, as compared to 177,185 in the same period last year. These figures included transiting, embarking and disembarking passengers.
Lisbon will open a new cruise terminal in Santa Apolonia in 2016. The minister anticipated the new terminal would help the city to attract about 650,000 cruise passengers a year.
AIDA cancels calls to Faroe Islands because of Pilot Whaling Act
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- Written by Teijo Niemelä Teijo Niemelä
- Category: Ports & Destinations Ports & Destinations
- Published: 11 August 2015 11 August 2015
AIDA Cruises has just announced the cancelling of its three planned calls to Klaksvik this summer in response to the new Faroese Pilot Whaling Act. Alan Lam reports.
The Act, recently passed by the local government will continue to allow pilot whales to be massacred or culled in the name of the Faroese cultural tradition, or food and resources management; it also empowers the authority to imprison - for up to two years - those found guilty of impeding the legitimate whaling activities of the self-governing islanders, who jealously defend their whaling right in spite of torrents of international condemnations.
Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd are among those taking direct action against this Act. It is believed that each year in Faroe Islands around 1,000 pilot whales are dragged into shallow waters and brutally killed with handheld knives. Haunting images of these slaughtered animals lying in a sea of blood are circulating throughout international media. There have been calls and petitions for the image conscious cruise industry to boycott these islands. Many cruise lines have scheduled calls to Klaksvik. They have been accused of supporting whaling simply by going there.
AIDA Cruises is the first major cruise line to make such a decisive move. The popularity of Faroe Islands as a destination has been growing among cruise travellers in recent years. This move by a major cruise operator is a serious blow to the local tourism industry, as it will mean losing up to 6,000 visitors to the islands, plus a substantial number of crewmembers.
Cruise lines will not want to be associated with the tarnished image of Faroe Islands. Aida will probably be the first of many to withdraw from this destination.
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