Good cruise ship year for the Baltic Sea region

Increasing numbers of tourists are choosing to take a cruise in the Baltic Sea region. The trend is clear: there are fewer ships than last year, but they are larger.

Yet another busy cruise ship year is closing to an end. The season’s last ships will dock in the Baltic Sea harbours this week.

Once more this year the region has experienced a growth in the number of cruise tourists. 2.2 million visits were registered by the harbours in the 19 destinations that make up the Cruise Baltic Project. This represents a growth of six per cent compared to the figures from last year.

The number of calls in the 19 harbours during this season was 2,073; in comparison, the Baltic region had 2,165 calls last season. But even though there were fewer ships visiting the harbours this year, more passengers disembarked according to the harbour calculations. And viewed over the period 2000-2006 the region has shown an average annual growth in dockings of 18 per cent.

Cruise Baltic Project’s project director, Signe Adamsen, explains the figures:
- The tendency is that ships are getting larger and carrying more passengers on board. Of course, we always want to have more ships visiting the region, but the most important thing is that the number of tourists is growing.

In 2006 50 more ships than in 2005 chose to let their passengers either begin or end their cruise at one of the Baltic destinations. 197 ships this year, compared to 147 ships last year, had their turnaround in the Baltic region – a growth of 34 per cent.