(Finance) – “The port of Palermo will end 2023 in fourth place in Italy in terms of number of cruise passengers, best season ever”. This was revealed in the new edition ofItalian Cruise Watch, the reference report for the cruise industrypresented at the Aragonese Castle of Taranto during the eleventh edition of the Italian Cruise day, the forum on Italian cruise tourism, conceived and organized by Rispetti Turismo, a research and consultancy company serving the tourism industry, founded and led by Francis of Caesar.
Furthermore, in an Italy that is once again breaking records on the cruise front, definitively leaving the dark period of the pandemic behind usand closing 2023 with a record of almost 13 million passengers who have chosen a cruise in the ports of the Peninsula, at a regional level, the Sicily is confirmed on third step of the podium with 1.8 million (+50% on 2022) total cruise passengers, after Liguria (over three million) and Lazio (2.9 million), while in terms of number of ship calls it shares first place with Lazio (862). However, there are eight Italian ports among the top twenty in the Mediterranean basin with Palermo in tenth position: nine positions climbed compared to 2019.
The evolutionary trajectories of cruise tourism in Palermo are evident, two numbers are sufficient: in 2019 – the last year before the pandemic emergency which overturned the sector, conditioning the data for 2020, 2021 and 2022 – Palermo welcomed 570,500 cruise passengers: at the end of 2023 will be 930 thousand. A result resulting from significant investments and a strategic vision.
“Having created accommodation infrastructures, five terminals in three ports, having started redevelopment works and created real sea gateways for our cities has also represented an important plus in cruise terms. One billion works createdof which over 600 million have already been completed, 400 million in progress, and a double-digit increase in all the individual sectors of the blue economy, which have grown this year not only compared to 2022, but also compared to 2019, are a presentation that does not need any other comments, other than those of the shipowners who have repaid our efforts by allocating their flagships to our main port, today with seabeds and accommodation facilities suited to our traffic ambitions”, explains the president of the Port System Authority of the Western Sicilian Sea, Pasqualino Monti.
“Our airports, and Palermo in particular, – continues Monti – are expressing great dynamism, giving concrete answers in terms of services and operations: We like Sicily, there’s no doubt, but beauty alone wouldn’t have been enough, an infrastructural and economic development was needed, also decisive for the territories involved, including four provinces, which promises, in the near future, to provide further satisfaction. We are working, in fact, so that West Sicily Gate, which manages our terminals, can realize the ambitious projects it has set itself and which concern not only the increase in passengers but also the commitment to ensure that our ports become home ports, creating that additional supply consisting of passengers who reach the city by plane and who spend a few days here before embarking for the start of the cruise”.
And the forecasts are excellent: the Italian Cruise Watchin fact, Piazza Palermo, in 2024, for the first time in the small club of ports that will exceed one million cruise passengers with Civitavecchia, Naples and Genoa. But the AdSP’s primary objective is to increase the number of the entire network. Also from the new edition of Italian Cruise Watch it is revealed that it is over 1.6 billion euros is the total value of port investments in cruise tourism expected in Italy in the three-year period 2024-2026of which 32.6% dedicated to the construction of new cruise terminals (almost 530 million), 26.7% for the preparation of the ports for alternative supplies and energy supplies at the quay (approximately 430 million) and over 20% to the creation of other infrastructures serving the cruise industry (330 million).