The buoyant cruise industry now accounts for more than a quarter of a million jobs in Europe, over €10 billion direct expenditure and 15 million visits to European ports. The results were unveiled by the European Cruise Council (ECC) at the industry’s second annual “European Cruise Contribution” at a major conference in Brussels today.
“This is the first time we’ve been able to compare annual trends and the impact of the cruise industry on European job creation, wealth and tourism,” said David Dingle, chairman of the ECC and chief executive officer of Carnival UK. “Every million euros spent by the cruise industry creates 2.2 million euros in business output and 21 jobs, paying an average wage of €33,500. There is no doubt that the revival of European shipping has helped to establish Europe as the new centre of gravity for the cruise industry.”
“But what’s particularly impressive is how quickly our industry has beaten our own forecasts, “ he said. “When the first economic impact study was published last year we predicted we’d achieve quarter of a million jobs and 3.6 million cruise passengers embarking on their holiday in Europe by 2010. We’ve hit that already, with a raft of impressive growth statistics which show how fast the cruise sector is growing in importance to European economies – embarkation figures are up 20%, passenger visits are up 21%, direct expenditure is up by 27% and ship construction is up by 32%.”
The ECC commissioned the report together with Euroyards, MedCruise and Cruise Europe. Other key results include:
Cruise companies, shipbuilding yards and cruise passengers now account for €10.6 billion of direct expenditure in Europe – that’s €2.3 billion more than 2005, a 27% increase. Europe’s position as the world leader in cruise ship design and construction is helping to drive this growth. During 2006 the global cruise industry spent an estimated €4.1 billion on cruise ship construction and maintenance in Europe. This is almost a billion euros more than in 2005
At the end of 2006, European shipyards were under contract to build 36 cruise ships with a combined value of €14.9 billion through to 2011.
The cruise industry is responsible for 225,586 jobs across Europe – a 20% expansion compared to the 187,252 jobs connected to the industry in 2005. At the end of 2006 there were 44 cruise lines in Europe with a fleet of 118 ships, and capacity for 100,000 passenger berths. Another 47 vessels with capacity for 51,300 berths were deployed in Europe by non-European lines.
Between 1995 and 2005 demand for cruising worldwide more than doubled from 5.7 million to 14.4 million passengers. Over the same period the number of Europeans taking cruise holidays around the world more than trebled from 1 million in 1995, and in 2006 it reached 3.4 million Europeans. Europeans -now account for 23% of cruise passengers worldwide, compared with just 19% ten years earlier.
The ECC report predicts that 4.1 million cruise tourists can expect to be sourced from European countries by 2010 and it could reach 5.1 million by 2015.
The most popular country for cruise ports of call in Europe is Italy, which welcomed 3.4 million cruise passengers to ports such as Naples, Civitavecchia and Livorno in 2006. Spanish ports including the Canary Islands are the second most popular welcoming 2.8 million cruise passenger visits. Greece welcomes the third largest number of cruise visitors in Europe – ports of call are spread throughout the country including Piraeus, Corfu, Katakolon, Santorini, Rhodes and Mykonos.
The top five European cruise destinations are Italy (3.4million), Spain (2.7 million), Greece (2.5 million), France (1.39 million) and Norway (1.13 million).
