Cruises, traffic declines in 2017

Genoa - A reduction of 7.1% in handled passengers (boarding, landing and transit) across Italy’s cruise harbours (10.3 million passengers), and a 9.6% drop in ship calls (4,500), as a result of a drop in the overall number of cruise ships that will call at Mediterranean ports, compared to 2016. These are, in brief, the updated forecasts for Italian cruise traffic in 2017, developed by Risposte Turismo – a research and consultancy firm - contained in its latest “Special Cruises” report, the seventh edition of the firm’s publication dedicated to cruise tourism. The information compiled from a sample of 46 cruise stopovers, representative of almost the totality of passenger traffic (99.8%) and ship port calls (97.4%), confirms the negative trend for cruise traffic in Italy announced during the sixth “Italian Cruise Day” event, which took place in La Spezia in September 2016.

By this year’s end the number of ports capable of handling over one million passengers could shrink from 4 to 3: Civitavecchia (2.2 million, -5.9%), Venice (1.4 million, -11.4%) and Naples (1 million, -23.4%). Italy’s presence in European port-ranking boasts five major ports, with Civitavecchia in 2nd place (2.3 million, behind Barcelona with about 2.7 million), Venice in 4th (about 1.6 million, behind Palma de Mallorca with about 1.63), Naples in 6th position (about 1.3 million), Genoa in 8th place (just over 1 million), and Savona in 9th (about 910,000). According to estimates by Risposte Turismo, in 2017 the Mediterranean could record its lowest percentage share of world traffic in the past 10 years, amounting to 15.5%, compared to 18.3% in 2016 and 16.4% in 2007. It’s the Caribbean that leads, instead, attracting 35.6% of traffic, and in third place is non-Mediterranean Europe, with 11.5% of the global share. Overall, Asia, with 10.9% of the cruise market share, is closing the gap remarkably quickly, an indication of the rapid growth of the cruise market in this geographical area.