Greece Comes Third as Cruise Port of Call

The European Cruise Council (ECC) and MedCruise recently announced the cruise industry now accounts for more than a quarter of a million jobs in Europe, over 10 billion euros direct expenditure and 15 million visits to European ports, Greece’s ports being the third most popular cruise destination.

The ECC commissioned the report together with Euroyards, MedCruise and Cruise Europe. The ECC report predicts 4.1 million cruise tourists can be expected from European countries by 2010 and this figure could reach 5.1 million by 2015.

The most popular country for cruise ports of call in Europe is Italy that welcomed 3.4 million cruise passengers to ports such as Naples, Civitavecchia and Livorno in 2006.  Spanish ports including the Canary Islands are the second most popular and welcomed 2.8 million cruise passenger visits. Greece welcomes the third largest number of cruise visitors in Europe with ports of call spread throughout the country including Piraeus, Corfu, Santorini, Rodos and Mykonos.

The top five European cruise destinations are Italy (3.4million), Spain (2.7 million), Greece (2.5 million), France (1.39 million) and Norway (1.13 million).

The results were unveiled by the European Cruise Council at the industry’s second annual “European Cruise Contribution” at the Cruise Industry 2008 Conference in Brussels.

MedCruise is an association of Mediterranean cruise ports that aims to promote the interests of Mediterranean ports whilst developing and fostering good relations and collaboration among all cruise ports of the world through the exchange of information.