Experts forecast up to 2 million German ocean cruise passengers in 2015 and 3 million by 2020, the Hamburg Cruise Center said in a statement.

“This growth will further benefit the cruise hub Hamburg, which has to date 161 cruise calls scheduled (150 turnaround calls, of which 24 partial turnarounds, plus 11 transit calls) for the 2015 season with an expected passenger volume of 525,000 (- 11%),” it said.

In global terms the German market is currently the second biggest in the world, overtaking the British market and counts for the cruise season 2014 in total 1.77 million ocean going cruise passengers (+5.02 percent).