Greece Sets Tapping into Cruise Segment High on the Agenda
As part of ongoing efforts to increase cruise passenger arrivals and cruise ship port calls, Greek Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni met with Deputy Maritime Affairs & Insular Policy Minister Ioannis Pappas, Secretary General of Ports, Port Policy and Maritime Investments Evangelos Kyriazopoulos, and Tourism Secretary General Myron Flouris to discuss the country’s cruise strategy and policies.
Protecting destinations while offering high quality tourism products and incorporating the cruise tourism segment topped the agenda. In this direction, officials discussed actions that include setting quotas, the imposition of special levies, and the launch of a berth allocation system.
Additionally, the need for infrastructure upgrades at ports across the country in order for these to be able to cater to the needs of cruise passengers and meet the requirements of cruise ship port calls were also mentioned.
Kefalogianni referred to the port of Piraeus, which broke all records in 2023, welcoming some 1.5 million cruise passengers compared to 880,000 in 2022.
The minister said establishing and promoting the country’s largest port as a home port was a top priority as it would contribute significantly to the national economy.
Lastly, the officials discussed the importance of the Observatory for Coastal and Marine Tourism in the Mediterranean, the first research station dedicated to measuring the sustainable development of coastal and maritime tourism across the Mediterranean as agreed in an MoU with UN Tourism (formerly known as the World Tourism Organization – UNWTO). The observatory, said Kefalogianni, will contribute to the formulation of the country’s cruise tourism policy.
According to Honorary Union of Cruise Ship Owners & Associated Members (EEKFN) President Theodore Kontes, the cruise tourism segment in Greece is set to exceed pre-pandemic 2019 levels this year reaching 5.61 million arrivals and by 2025 reaching 5.8 million.
Money, money, money… When more and more voices point the environmental issues that cruise ships create… And with main ports in Greece already saturated by visitors.