Warnemünde keeps the lead with the highest number of visitors to date
At around 8am on 15 October the cruise liner AIDAmar tied up at berth P7 and thus end the cruise shipping season with the highest number of visitors to date in Rostock’s Baltic Sea resort.
In all, 766,000 cruise travellers embarked and disembarked during the 181 port calls by holiday ships this year.
“Warnemünde is thus again the most frequented cruise port in Germany. We thank all the cruise shipping companies, service providers and public authorities for the good cooperation this year”, summarizes Jens A. Scharner, Managing Director of the Rostock Port Development Company.
Of the 181 port calls by 31 cruise vessels this year, 160 were serviced in Warnemünde and 21 at the sea port. Like last year the largest vessel to set course for the mouth of river Warnow this season was the Regal Princess with a length of 330 meters and a gross register tonnage of 142,714.
The vessel, which was commissioned in May 2014, is able to carry around 3600 passengers and 1350 crew. 107 port calls by cruise vessels involved a full or partial turnaround of passengers. Rostock-based shipping company AIDA Cruises, for instance, again sent two ships on cruises around the Baltic Sea from the base port Warnemünde 41 times: AIDAdiva and AIDAmar. This season, 21 international shipping companies included the Baltic Sea port on river Warnow in their route planning.
16 percent of all cruise tourists visited Berlin
This year the majority of cruise travellers were Germans at 118,000, followed by 71,000 Americans, 36,000 British, 31,000 Spaniards, 20,000 Italians, 15,000 Canadians, 11,000 Australians and 81,000 tourists from 150 other nations. The ships also carried 140,000 crew members from 116 countries, more than one third of whom went on shore leave.
16 percent of all cruise guests coming to Warnemünde, that is around 60,000, went on a day trip to Berlin by train or coach this season. About 153,000 passengers set out to discover Warnemünde, Rostock or Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on day trips and 170,000 started and/or ended their cruise in the passenger port at the mouth of river Warnow.
Based on a study by Rostock University on the spending behaviour of passengers and crew members one may assume that the cruise travellers and crew members spent at least Euro 16 million during the 2016 season, especially in local and regional shops, hotels and restaurants, on public transport, taxi rides and car parking in Warnemünde, Rostock and their environs. Adding to this is the turnover realized through cruise shipping by coach operators, railways, travel agents for shore excursions, utilities, supply and disposal companies, shipping agents, pilots and port operators.
“The cruise guests generate great demand in many areas and they bring an international flair to the port city of Rostock and the holiday state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern”, states Jens A. Scharner.
13 cruise liners availed themselves of the opportunity to discharge so-called grey water directly from the ship into the public waste water system during 90 port calls this year. In total 24,500 cubic meters of ship’s waste water were disposed of.
