Tarragona presented as a model of success in the International Cruise Summit, the European debating forum for international cruises

Tarragona presented as a model of success in the International Cruise Summit, the European debating forum for international cruises
01 Dec
2017

The Port of Tarragona expects to receive 55 cruise ships and 80,000 passengers next season

This Thursday Tarragona was presented as a model of success in the International Cruise Summit (ICS): the main forum for global debate on the global cruise industry, which is held annually in Madrid. In recent years, a significant increase in cruise business has been recorded worldwide, and every year this sector reveals itself to be one of the driving forces in the tourism industry.

The ICS is an event of international significance that attracts an average of 400 national and international professionals every year. Since its creation in 2011, it has grown to become one of the most recognised events in the sector. In this year’s event, the Port of Tarragona and its region of influence have played a leading role, with the Port’s cruise initiative being presented as a model of success since its launch in 2013, and reaching its highest point so far this year with Costa Cruises' commitment to Tarragona as a base port.

In the event the case for Tarragona was presented by Raffaele D'Ambrosio, managing director of Costa in Spain and Portugal, Josep Andreu, chairman of the Port of Tarragona, and Marta Farrero, technical director of the Costa Daurada Tourist Board. D'Ambrosio talked about the commitment of Costa Cruises to Tarragona as a new destination, an initiative that "has been very successful for two reasons: because we have worked as a team, between the company, the Port and the destination, and because everything has been done with the end consumer in mind".

For his part, Josep Andreu explained how he began the whole project of turning Tarragona into a cruise port in 2013, and highlighted the role played by the institutional cruise committee, made up of the Port, the tourism boards of Tarragona and Reus city councils, Tarragona County Council’s Costa Daurada Tourist Board, Tarragona Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Navigation, Rovira i Virgili University, PortAventura World and the Hotel and Tourism Business Federation.

Andreu gave a summary of the figures for the 2017 cruise season, with 37 cruise ships and 51,390 passengers. The chairman of the Port also spoke of the forecast for 2018, figures that put the number of boats at 55 and 80,000 passengers.

This substantial increase for 2018 is due in part to the fact that the shipping company Costa Cruises has decided to change this year’s cruise ship, the Costa neoRiviera, with a capacity for 1,727 passengers, for the Costa Victoria, which can berth up to 2,394 passengers, leading to a very important increase in the number of passengers arriving in the Port of Tarragona. In the same way, an increase in the commitment of other shipping companies to this destination will be noted.

Andreu also explained how this successful model was attained. He listed the challenges that have been met in 2017 in order to organise the logistics of boarding and landing that the fact of becoming a base port for the first time calls for.

 

The last to intervene was the Technical Director of the Costa Daurada Tourist Board, Marta Farrero, who presented data that refer to Tarragona and the Costa Daurada as a tourist destination: the nationality of passengers (mostly Italian, Spanish and British, in this order), excursions (68% of cruise passengers opt to visit the city of Tarragona) and assessment of these excursions (a score of 9 for Tarragona and one of 8.1 for Reus and Cambrils), among others.

 

 

Cruise ships

 
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Tarragona, city of cruise ships

 
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Tagged under
  • Puerto de Tarragona
  • Tarragona Cruise Port
  • Tarragona ciutat de creuers
  • Creuers a Tarragona

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