The turnover generated by ferry and cruise tourists is markedly high at around €71 million or 13.5 percent of the total tourist turnover of around €523 million in the Hanseatic City of Rostock, states Prof. Dr. Martin Benkenstein from Institute of Marketing & Service Research at Rostock university.
The passenger vessel Black Watch of the UK shipping company Fred Olsen will visit the Baltic Sea resort of Warnemünde from 30 November to 1 December and complete this year's cruise season. The 205 m long cruise liner carrying 655 passengers is on a Christmas fair tour of the Baltic since 22 November during which the predominantly British passengers visit the pre-yuletide cities of Copenhagen, Tallinn, St. Petersburg, Rostock-Warnemünde and Kiel. The port city of Southampton in the south of England is the start and end point of the theme cruise 'Baltic Christmas Markets'.
'This is the first cruise liner we are able to welcome to Warnemünde at such a late time of year', says Ulrich Bauermeister, managing director of Hafen-Entwicklungsgesellschaft Rostock mbH, adding: 'There is still a lot of potential here. It would be nice if the business community involved and we were to succeed in bringing more passenger vessels to our very convenient but also expensive port facilities in Warnemünde during autumn and winter. By thus extending the season we would achieve a better annual utilization of the facilities. This would also be of considerable benefit to the local business community.'
With 181 port calls by 40 ocean cruise liners the passenger port of Rostock-Warnemünde again navigates ahead of all German cruise ports in 2012. 25 international cruise operators included this southern Baltic cruise port popular with passengers and crews alike, in their itineraries as their base port or as the starting point for excursions to the Hanseatic City, the holiday region of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the German capital, Berlin.
