MedCruise participated in Cruise Shipping Miami 2013 with a very strong presence in this key international cruise event. For another year the Association’s stand offered to the members a space for meeting networking and promoting their ports companies and destinations attracting the most relevant stakeholders of the cruise industry.
During the show the Association presented to the public a preview on the MedCruise Statistics Report 2013 Edition which showed the situation in MedCruise member ports the Mediterranean and adjacent seas.
MedCruise President Stavros Hatzakos presented the results in front of an audience that included port members associated members cruise line executives and other professionals from different sectors of the cruise industry.
Hatzakos remarked the 25 million passengers and almost 14.000 calls reached by MedCruise ports in 2012. During the last 10 years the number of bed days increased on 200% and in the last 5 years the increase was of 50% despite the difficult financial situation.
In terms of cruise deployment trends the Mediterranean has almost doubled the deployed capacity share since 2002 representing today the 20% of the total cruise beds.
Another remarkable observation was the fact that the average number of passenger movements per call has been increasing regularly in the last 10 years despite the slight decrease in pax. movements and calls in 2012.
After the presentation there was a cocktail reception where all the participants had the opportunity to interact with each other and discuss further the first results of the study and other relevant issues.
MedCruise was also present in the conferences that took place during the show. President Stavros Hatzakos participated as speaker in one of the sessions discussing the cruise line and port interface specifically focused in the privatization of ports with Adam Sharp (CLIA Europe’s Ports Committee & Royal Caribbean) and William Tatham (Port of Jamaica). Hatzakos stated that although the majority of the ports are still public the involvement of private management in the ports is increasing being present in different ways and creating different types of relationship between ports and cruise lines.
