Piraeus Includes Hotels, Shopping Malls in €294m Expansion Plans

© Piraeus Port Authority

The Piraeus Port Authority is investing 294 million euros over a five-year period to upgrade its existing infrastructure and boost its competitiveness in the lucrative East Med cruise sector, it was announced during the opening day of the 4th Posidonia Sea Tourism Forum on Tuesday.

Theodora Riga, Manager of Strategic Planning & Marketing Department, PPA.

According to PPA’s manager of Strategic Planning & Marketing Department, Theodora Riga, a significant part of the investment will support Greece’s cruise sector as it includes the expansion of the Southern port with capacity for four new cruise berths, up to 400m each for new generation ships.

The plans also include the development of hotels, shopping malls, restaurants and other auxiliary services designed to establish Piraeus Port as a key East Mediterranean cruise line homeport.

“The planned infrastructure improvements will benefit the cruise sector overall by providing best-in-class customer service experience to the operators of the cruise ships as well as by enhancing the overall experience of their guests,” said Riga.

Piraeus currently boasts a total of 2.8kms in quay length with a draft of up to 11m tide free. It has between 9-11 simultaneous berthing places. The expansion plans are expected to add a further 1,65kms of quay length further strengthening the Port’s capacity by roughly 50 percent.

“New value added services for the cruise lines and passengers are at the core of Piraeus Port Authority’s vision to promote overall product awareness in the Chinese market and act as a facilitator to capture higher volumes of tourists from the Far East,” Riga added.

Organized by Posidonia Exhibitions and held under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Maritime Affairs & Insular Policy, the 4th Posidonia Sea Tourism Forum will wrap up on May 24.

The Greek Travel Pages (GTP) is a media sponsor of this year’s Posidonia Sea Tourism Forum.