Cruise: Greece becomes a homeport destination

Her Anastasia Vamvaka

The vast majority of cruise ships that already moor in Greek ports will be for homeporting, will set sail or will be ports of landing, tripling the economic benefits to GDP and adjacent cities.

“There are more than 700 cruise ships that are expected to be found in the Greek seas in 2022”, pointed out the Minister of Shipping and Island Policy Giannis Plakiotakis, in a special event held at the Lavrio Port Authority, on the occasion of the official launch of the cruise program the cruise ship “Olympia”.

“According to the available data,” said Mr. Plakiotakis, “there are more than 700 cruise ships that will be in the Aegean. Of these, 570 and more will do homeporting in Greece, while the rest will be in transit.”

Cruise ports: Piraeus and Corfu in the top 10 of the Mediterranean

Favorable conditions – despite the difficulties due to Covid – had been evident since last year, with two Greek ports being in the top 10 with the most passenger traffic. According to MedCruises, Piraeus and Corfu are in the 10 most important ports of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

More specifically, two cruise ports in the Mediterranean and adjacent seas hosted more than half a million passengers in 2021 at the top of the list of ports with the most significant traffic. These are Genoa (591,391) and Barcelona (520,854). Third in the ranking Civitavecchia / Fiumicino (Rome) / Gaeta hosted almost half a million passengers (490,344).

Passenger traffic in four other ports – Marseille, Balearic Islands, Tenerife and Piraeus ports – ranged between 352,000 and 300,000 passengers. The other cruise portals that complete the list are Naples / Salerno / Castellamare di Stampia (Naples), Corfu and Bari with more than 210,000 passenger movements.

Source: MedCruise

The big drop in both passenger and cruise ship approaches for 2021 compared to 2019 is reflected in all European ports. Despite the first, Piraeus climbed one place in the ranking, while Corfu from 12th place in 2019 climbed to 9th in the number of visitors.

Impressive is the fact that the Port of Piraeus (PPA) last year was the second port in the whole basin in number of cruise ships it received, hosting 379 with the first one of Tenerife with 411 approaches. In 2019 Piraeus was in 4th place, while Corfu from 13th place was in 2021 in 8th.

Source: MedCruise

Giannis Plakiotakis noted that “2022 will be an economically uplifting year for the cruise industry which will significantly strengthen the local economies while contributing to the increase of the tourist flow”.

Regarding the port of Lavrio, the Minister of Shipping and Island Policy, noted that “this is also in a phase of evolution and modernization.

“Now we are in the final stretch for the construction of the five floating piers for hosting yachts with 192 new berths in a special geographical location with great demand.”

Yesterday Celestyal Cruises launched the cruise program from the port of Lavrio for 2022 with the cruise ship Celestyal Olympia and the popular three-day and four-day cruises “Images of the Aegean”, which will approach Mykonos, Pau, Kusadasi, Santorini twice a week, while every Wednesday the cruise ship will visit the port of Rhodes.

The event was honored by the presence of Messrs. Ioannis Plakiotakis, Minister of Shipping and Island Policy, Sofia Zacharaki, Deputy Minister of Tourism, Capt. Georgios Koumpenas, General Manager of Celestyal Cruises and President of the Association of Cruise Shipowners and Shipping Agencies (EEKFN), the President of ALL Ioanna Koulouvrakis, Georgios Vakondios, Chief Executive Officer (General Manager) and Port Policy and Investment, Nikos Peppas, Deputy Regional Minister of Finance of Attica and Mr. Dimitrios Loukas, Mayor of Lavrio.