Sea Tourism

State-owned Hellenic Tourism Properties last month signed a concession agreement that grants operation rights for the Flisvos Marina facility on the Athens coast to the Lamda Technol consortium.

Superfast Ferries posted sales of almost 160 million euros for the first nine months of last year. Some 61% of sales came from the Adriatic market, about 30% from the Balkan market and the remaining 9% from the North Sea routes.

Stintzis Lines, owner of Blue Star Ferries, announced last month that the ferry line posted a consolidated 9-month profit before taxes that was 75.3% higher when compared with the same first nine-month-period of the year before and reached 3.4 million euros.

Greece’s major seaports are scheduled to undergo a series of large construction projects designed to upgrade their infrastructure and increase their cargo handling capacity.

Local coastal shipping companies, and the banks they owe substantial funds to, are in talks with Greece’s merchant marine ministry to find ways that would ensure the survival of the country’s coastal shipping fleet. Bankers strongly believe that it is of the utmost importance to increase fares, for a start, and to completely deregulate them after November 2002.

Just three days before Christmas, Minoan Lines placed its newest high-speed vessel, Olympia Palace, on the Patras-Ancona route. The Olympia Palace is the fifth new vessel the Crete-based ferry line launched during 2001.

Superfast IX, for the moment the newest vessel in the Attica Enterprises’ fleet, last month began service on the new Germany-Sweden route between the port of Sodertalje, in the greater Stockholm area and the port of Rostock, Germany. The new service represents the second stage of the company’s expansion into the Baltic Sea.

Construction of the first phase of a new system that will modernize the way ships sail Greek seas gets underway this month. Called Vessel Traffic Management and Information System, the control center will track vessels sailing Greek waters from four main harbor points – Piraeus, Patras, Igoumenitsa and Corfu.

The first phase of the bidding process for the privatization of the Alimos, Floisvos and Zea marinas conducted by the Hellenic Tourism Properties is completed. And some very powerful business groups are among those that will continue to participate in the final stage.

Superfast XII slid gracefully down the slipway of the yard into the waters of the Baltic Sea last month. Attica Enterprises, the holding company for Superfast Ferries, said its newest super-fast vessel is due for delivery from the Flender Werft shipyards in Lubeck, Germany, in the second quarter of 2002.