Sea Tourism

Coastal shipping tickets are expected to be at least 10 percent cheaper this summer as dues for third parties are to be eliminated from the price, Prime Minister George Papandreou announced last month at the 19th General Assembly of the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE).

The potential for sea tourism and the development of the economies of Greece, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea region will be examined during the first Posidonia Sea Tourism Forum, scheduled to take place 21-22 June at the Onassis Cultural Center in Athens.

The required three-year contract international cruise companies are required to sign with the Greek Government in order to homeport at a Greek port is a “written declaration of cooperation” that may be terminated at any time without any penalty, Maritime Affairs Minister Yiannis Diamantidis recently explained in a press release.

Royal Caribbean Cruises recently signed an agreement with German shipyard Meyer Werft and ordered a brand new class of ships, dubbed “Project Sunshine,” according to the cruiseline’s representative in Greece Navigator Travel and Tourism Services.

The Ministry of Maritime Affairs may hope to attract non-European Union flag cruise ships this summer, but cruise professionals have warned that the market may be lost even for 2012 due to unclear points in the new law for the lifting of cabotage restrictions, Greek press reports said last month.

Cyprus-based Louis Cruises, the only cruise company with Greek flag ships, announced last month that it had decided to abandon the Greek flag and switch to the Malta flag.

Louis Cruises recently announced that its luxurious Louis Majesty would now perform cruises in the Aegean Sea next summer from Piraeus, Greece.

If the increase of port charges are passed on to the consumer, cruise passengers would most likely cancel their bookings and prefer other locations because the Greek product will have become too expensive, according to the General Pan-Hellenic Federation of Tourism Enterprises (GEPOET).

“A new era begins for Greek tourism and cruise in our country with the arrival of 2011,” Deputy Culture and Tourism Minister George Nikitiadis said last month after welcoming the Panama-flag cruise ship Fantasia to Rodos. Fantasia was the first cruiseship to approach Rodos Port in 2011.

The development of diving tourism is one of the top priorities of the Culture and Tourism Ministry within the framework of promoting alternative forms of tourism, Deputy Culture and Tourism Minister George Nikitiadis said at the “Biodiversity and Diving Tourism in the Greek Seas” conference held in Athens in late November.