2023 will be a record year for cruises in Italy. According to Cemar Agency Network’s forecasts, by the end of the year 12.8 million passengers will have transited through the peninsula’s ports (+37.6% compared to 2022 and +9.2% compared to 2019, which was the last pre-cruise season).
On the other hand, the number of vessel calls will be slightly less than in 2022: 4,915 compared to 4,955. 168 ships, representing 52 shipping companies, are due to sail in Italian waters.
Some 72 Italian ports will handle cruise traffic. With 2.8 million passengers, Civitavecchia will continue to come top of the list, followed by Genoa (1.4 million), Naples (1.4 million), Savona, La Spezia, Palermo, Messina, Livorno, Venice and Trieste.
As far as regional traffic is concerned, Liguria (3.2 million passengers) will continue to be in first place, as well as being the region where 83% of the agencies managing cruise ship calls in Italy are concentrated, followed by Lazio (2.9 million), Campania (1.6 million) and Sicily (1.5 million).
Among the companies that will be handling the largest number of passengers in Italian ports in 2023, Msc Crociere stands out, with almost 4 million. It will be followed by Costa Crociere (2.4 million), Royal Caribbean (1.2 million), Norwegian Cruise Line (1.1 million) and Celebrity Cruises (0.8 million).
At the Seatrade Cruise Global event being held in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Cemar Agency Network president Sergio Senesi said that they had received and analyzed strong signs of growth, particularly in terms of the number of passengers in Italian ports compared to the number of vessel calls.
Translation by Giles Foster
