MedCruise Association launched a new Working Group in Tunis and hold the meeting of the Working Group of Black Sea in Constanta
MedCruise President, Airam Diaz Pastor, and MedCruise Director for North Africa, Cherifa Ben Salem, together with some Tunisian personalities and Port La Goulette Director, Mohamed Omrane, launched last week in Tunis the MedCruise Working Group on North Africa.
The launching of this Working Group comes after the Working Plan presented by MedCruise President during the 51st MedCruise General Assembly held in Toulon in October 2017 and the agreement of all Board of Directors members in developing the Working Group and being led by Ben Salem, which is focused on promoting the cruise activities in North Africa as well as developing cruise itineraries in the region.
The Working Group is composed by MedCruise members from the region -Port of Tangier, Port of Ceuta, Tunisian Ports and Egyptian Ports- as well as the associate members such as La Goulette Shipping Cruise, Mercantile Marine Shipping, Algeria Cruise Services and Ceuta Tourism Board.
MedCruise Director for Events and Port of Gibraltar representative, Nicky Guerrero, and MedCruise Ambassador, Lotfi El Ajmi, also attended the meeting. The attendees had the opportunity to discuss about the situation of the cruise industry in that region and also elaborate a road map composed by a sort of actions to be implemented in the following months.
During his intervention, MedCruise President, highlighted the potential of this MedCruise region due to the increase of the tourism in Northern African countries and the optimistic forecast for the coming years. “The launching of this Working Group will have a positive impact at the cruise industry in the whole Mediterranean region and bring new opportunities to the cruise-industry-related-companies that operate here”.
On the other hand, Ben Salem remarked the “necessity of working together and sharing best practices among the Working Group members, which will lead to a common strategy for promotion”.
Next meetings to be held in Kusadasi, hosting port of the upcoming MedCruise General Assembly, and in Port of Alexandria.
On Friday, February 22nd 2019, the meeting of the MedCruise Working Group on Black Sea took place at the headquarters of the National Company Maritime Ports Administration S.A. Constanta.
Representatives of the management of the ports of Varna, Burgas, Odessa, Istanbul, from the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority have participated in the meeting of the Working Group. Jordi Caballé, Secretary General of MedCruise, was also present for the first time in the port of Constanta.
The members of the Working Group on Black Sea have discussed a sort of actions for the comeback of the major cruise lines in the Black Sea, a marketing strategy for 2019-2021, the latest investments in the field of cruise tourism in the Black Sea, the news announced by the cruise companies for the Black Sea region.
Currently, there are clear clues about relaunching of the cruise tourism, maritime cruise ships of large capacity already announcing their calls for the next three years.
This year, major cruise lines will analyze and test all the conditions offered to passenger ships in the port of Constanta, and will plan the itineraries for the coming years.
For 2019, Aegean cruise lines included the port of Constanta on the list of calls for the cruise ship Aegean Odyssey, and for 2020 and 2021, the company Azamara Club Cruises has already locked the berth for the cruise ship Azamara Journey, after an absence of several years in the region.
Up to now, for the 2019 cruise season, 21 cruise ships have been already announced in the port of Constanta, the first one, a river cruise ship, arriving on March 24th.
