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.