Virginia Lopez of CruisesNews Media Group joins the 47th MedCruise General Assembly that took place in Olbia, North Sardinia, Italy, 14-17 October 2015 and creates a 20+ page report on the event.
MedCruise, the organisation that promotes the Mediterranean as cruise destination, celebrated its 47th General Assembly in Olbia, North Sardinia, 14-17 October 2015.
The MedCruise General Assembly, and related activities were followed by 120 participants, including 10 cruise lines representatives that enjoyed a series of discussions and three sessions of B2B meetings advancing business and more calls in the future.
The prelude of the event was the Mediterranean regional meeting of the pan-European dialogue between cruise lines, port, and destination stakeholders, that was organized by the European Commission at the eve of the MedCruise General Assembly.
Several issues were addressed cused not only in Mediterranean Ports, but also in external factors that influence its development. China is the hot topic, because almost all cruise lines have announced the deployment of ships in that region.
Royal Caribbean’s Dustin Nason, director worldwide port operations, said that Asia and Caribbean are the biggest external competitors. ‘In China yields are high and with the middle class population reaching 350 million in 2016, these factors will influence deployment decisions,’ he said. But Nason also noted that if yields improve in the Caribbean then Mediterranean could have more seasonal ships in the summer, because it’s easy to reposi-tion ships between the Caribbean and the Med than it is to redeploy ships from Asia back to Europe.
Mediterranean is the second most popular cruising area in the world, with an 18,6% share of the market compared to the Caribbean’s 37,6%, and it scoring 8 out of 10 in the Royal Caribbean brands. MedCruise president Carla Salvado said there was cause for optimism in Mediterranean cruising. “Despite some decline in traffic the last year, we have experienced long-term growth in the Med and we need to sustain it,” she said.
Salvado told the assembly that MedCruise was working with CLIA Europe to reverse low levels of penetration in key source markets. CLIA Europe secretary general Raphael von Heereman said travel agents had an important role to play in this process, because until now, 70% of cruise passengers in Europe have booked through travel agents, and he be-lieve this won’t change soon. “Better trained travel agents lead to more informed consumers and thus more bookings and more cruises taken.” he said. CLIA Eu-rope and MedCruise are in the process of launching a joint venture by setting up an online train-ing tool to educate and certify travel agents. CLIA Europe and MedCruise are in the process of launching a joint venture by setting up an online training tool to educate and certify travel agents.Kerry Anastassiades of Celestyal Cruises said that Turkey, with 80 million populations, held great potential for cruise growth in the region. He said promotion was another big issue ports should address. “How can you as ports help the cruise industry grow in terms of bringing more people? You need to start collaborating and clustering, working with itinerary planners.” And he asked ports, ‘How much money do you spend on telling the consumer how good cruising is?’
Turning to port infrastructure, Michel Nestour, Carnival Corp & plc vp global port and destination development Euromed, showed delegates images from the newly opened Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic, a port that was built from scratch inside five years.
‘Ships have evolved over the past 35 years, so ports also need to evolve,’ he said but lamented that this type of infrastructure is happening in the Caribbean and in Asia but not in Europe yet.
The 47th General Assembly is well designed for networking. Several work shop sessions took place as well as B2B meetings between cruise lines, members and international press representatives.
Is fair to mention that the Assembly was complemented by excursions specially oriented to the cruise line executives and members of the press who enjoyed the local gastronomy and excellent wines from local wineries.
Please follow this link, to download the original report.
