Miami 12th March 2012 

The shipwreck of Costa Concordia will not seriously affect Italian cruises in 2012, according to the usual report that Genoa-based Cemar Agency Network makes known every year at the Miami Cruise Shipping Conference.
In 2012 cruises in Italy will involve 47 shipping companies, 148 ships, and 66 ports in high season with a daily throughput of 75,000 passengers. The overall yearly throughput is expected to be 10,748,000 passengers (-0.76% over 2011) with 4,891 calls at Italian ports (-5.59%), just a slight decrease when compared with the 17% growth trend during the last years and taking into account the accidents recently occurred and the ongoing global economic crisis.
“The cruise market confirms to be a steady one, despite the economic trend and the accidents. We double-checked the data and made a first analysis of the 2013 season, which allows us to forecast that growth will be soon back, mainly thanks to the new vessels scheduled for delivery” comments Cemar’s chairman Sergio Senesi.
As to port ranking, Civitavecchia (Rome) is again the leader with 2,420,000 passengers, before Venice (1,798,000) and Naples (1,207,000). These ports make for 50% of the overall Italian throughput and are followed by Leghorn (for the first time over 1 million passengers), Savona, Genoa, Bari, Messina, Palermo, Catania, Salerno, Olbia, and Cagliari.
“However, Italian ports will have to counter foreign competition by improving the price/quality ratio of their services, in order to avoid that the slow decrease in calls by shipping companies managing 100 to 300 passengers ships (like Star Clippers, Windstar, Seabourn, and Sea Dream), which prefer other destinations, becomes a widespread drift” warns Senesi.
The challenge is thus to prove Italian ports are technically and operatively sound. “This is why we’re asking them to start planning calls on the grounds of their actual means, providing more effective tools for booking berths, not a difficult task with today’s technologies. This way they could overcome the quays’ structural limitations and give higher quality onshore services. We must also sorrily remark that almost all Italian ports do not still provide a differentiated management of waste, although present-day passengers cruisers are perfectly equipped for and do it. This entails heavy costs, as the ships can pay up to 200 euros per tonne for the disposal of glass, wood, cardboard, and aluminium” concludes Senesi

Ship2shore


Research based on data by CEMAR - Sergio Senesi

CEMAR AGENCY NETWORK cruising department is active in the business for over 29 years. Born as a company dedicated to providing services for large yachts, Cemar is now specialized in cruise ships and represents some of the main shipping companies of the world in Italy.