The cruise season is over for this year, and Stavanger can denote a 20%’s increase of cruise guests.
Photo: Odd Bjørn Bekkeheien
Even though the number of cruises decreased from 1694 in 2010, to 1678 in 2011, the number of cruise tourists increased with 12 %. From 1 821 111 in 2010, to 2 040 166 this year. The reason for this is the fact that the cruise ships visiting Norway has increased in size and capacity. Cruise Norway AS, the marketing company for Norway as a cruise destination, reports that this year’s cruise season turned out to be as expected.
The cruise season continues to get longer, and in 2012 there will also be 7 winter cruises to Norway. Cruise traffic to Norway disperses between more ports than before, and today there are a total of 41 cruise ports in Norway. The potential for growth is big. According to a guest inquiry for the Norwegian economy department in 2010, the direct consumption from cruise guests in Norway is more than 2 billion NOK per year. More and more cruise shipping companies wish to fly their passengers to Norway, arrange land activities, and cruise out of Norway.
Stavanger is getting more popular as cruise destination and the number of visitors increased by 22 %, from 175 325 cruise guests in 2010, to 215 026 in 2011. On the top ten-list of Norwegian cruise ports (ranked by number of cruise guests) Stavanger is on 4th place behind Bergen, Oslo and Geirangerfjord. This year Stavanger saw 132 foreign cruise ships, compared to last years 111.
Stavanger’s cruise coordinator Anders Bang Andersen says that Stavanger still is one of the cruise ports that increase the most in Europe. Other ports may have a bigger increase from one year to another, but Stavanger has had steady growth over the last 4-5 years. When it comes to cruise, Stavanger prospers not only in quantity, but also in quality. Last year’s inquiries show that the satisfaction-level amongst cruise guests is very high after a Stavanger visit.
The cruise outlooks for 2012 look very promising, and there can be a significant increase in both number of guests and cruise stops. The cruise lists for next year will be published in the beginning of January.