MedCruise has reported 27 million passenger movements for its member ports in 2013, up from 25.9 million in 2012. This represents a 4 percent increase year-over-year and a 23.7 percent increase over the five-year period since 2009.
While 2012 saw a decline from 2011, 2013 set a new record for passenger movements, according to MedCruise President Stavros Hatzakos, who made the presentation with Thanos Pallis, secretary general, at the Miami cruise shipping conference earlier this week.
According to Hatzakos, the number of calls reached 14,428 last year, up nearly 4 percent from the previous year.
MedCruise has 67 port members representing more than 78 percent of the cruise passenger movements in the Mediterranean.
The busiest ports last year were Barcelona with 2.6 million passengers; Civitavecchia, 2.5 million; and Venice, 1.8 million.
In terms of calls and transit passengers, Civitavecchia had the most traffic with 1.5 million passengers, followed by Dubrovnik, Barcelona and Naples.
Venice reported the most passengers as a turn-around port with 1.5 million, followed by Barcelona, Civitavecchia, Savona and Genoa.
For 2012, almost 70 percent of the passenger movements were attributed to the Western Mediterranean; 19.5 percent to the Adriatic; 10 percent to the Eastern Mediterranean; and approximately 0.5 percent to the Black Sea.
The cruise traffic is concentrated in the period from May through October with about 20 milllion passenger movements and the balance throughout the winter season. The single, busiest month last year was October.
Since 2009, the average ship size has increased from carrying 1,613 passengers to 1,873.
The market statistics are available in a report from MedCruise.
