Germany is the fastest growing source market worldwide. A total volume of 1.4 million German cruise passengers was counted for 2011, which represents an increase of 14 percent over the last year (2010: 1.22 million passengers).
The German ports are benefiting over proportionally of this growth, not only because of the trend cruising closer to home. Baltic, Norway and the Atlantic West Coast are more and more in the focus of the cruise industry and hence the German ports are the ideal homeports.
The five German ports Bremerhaven, Hamburg, Kiel, Lübeck and Rostock handled in 2011 a passenger volume of more than 1.14 million and counted over 460 calls. This results in a huge economical and touristic impact for the whole destination Germany.
Under the umbrella of the "Destination Germany" the five ports exhibited together at the world biggest cruise fair in Miami, the Cruise Shipping Miami.
The market response is overall positive, as well as in Germany where the five ports estimate over 1.27 million passengers and over 540 calls for 2012. Showing up with a passenger growth of 11 percent for 2012, the five German ports strongly believe that Germany will further increase as source market and will turn more and more a whole year around destination.
