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Over 5,000 calls expected in Italian ports

Over 5,000 calls expected in Italian ports
The number of passengers visiting Italian ports in 2016 is set to rise 2.7% year-on-year to 11.4m according to updated data released by Risposte Turismo research and consulting company.

Ports will welcome over 5,000 ship calls this year, a rise of 3.7% compared to 2015.
 
Civitavecchia(with 2.3m), Venice(1.55m) and Naples(1.28m) will respectively take the three top slots with numbers up +1.4% and 0.8% compared to 2015 in Civtavecchia and Naples but down 2.1% in Venice. All three will record more ship visits with  846 (+6.5%), 529 (+1.5%) and 495 (+11.2%), respectively.

In fourth position is Genoa with 1.1m passengers and 242 calls, a jump of almost 30% in cruisers and 22% more ships compared to 2015.

Savona is expected to reach 990,000 passengers and 212 ship calls, followed by Livorno with 800,000 passengers on 409 ships.

In 7th and 8th place are La Spezia and Palermo with around half a million passengers each with respectively, 556,400 (-16%) and 500,000 (-8.6%). .

The top 10 ports listed by Risposte Turismo include Bari and Messina.

Among the remaining 13 ports in the survey, and notably the port of calls with over 100,000 passengers, the higher increase is forecasted for Catania with 111,172 passengers and 67 ship calls up 36% and 11.7% compared to 2015. Trapani is expected to reach 90,000 passengers and 110 ship calls.

Under the 100,000 passenger mark, Ravenna is expecting 50,000 passengers (a 25% increase on last year) while Portofino will welcome 29,412 passengers, a 50% increase.  
 
Based on information provided by more than 40 ports, which in 2015 represented 99% of Italy's cruise traffic and 95% of calls, the study confirms the recovery of the cruise market in Italy, already flagged by Risposte Turismo last October in Civitavecchia at the 4th Italian Cruise Day event.
 
'After quadrupling between 2001 and 2011, and then passing through a phase of positive and negative years since, cruise traffic in Italy seems to have found a good gear in 2015 and again in 2016,' said Francesco di Cesare, president of Risposte Turismo.
 
2015 closed with around 11.1m passengers and 4,880 ship calls, which respectively represent a 6.5% and 2.1% increase compared to 2014.
 
Liguria held its position as the most popular cruise destination in Italy with ports receiving 2.57m passengers and 823 calls in 2015, accounting for 23% and 18%, respectrively of the country's traffic.
 
The Lazio region headed by Civitavecchia is in second place with 2.28m cruise visitors, a 20% share of the national total and Veneto region with Venice, recording 1.58m passengers, down 8.7% compared to 2014, and a 14% share of Italy as a whole.
 
Among Italian ports, three hit the one million passenger mark while 15 surpassed the 100,000 passenger threshold in 2015.
 
In 2015 Venice was the top homeport attracting around 1.36m passengers, followed by Civitavecchia and Savona with respectively around 868,000 and 647,000 passengers. For transit passengers, Civitavecchia holds its top spot with around 1.4m, followed by Naples 1.14m and Leghorn 694,000.
 
The Adriatic basin lost 5.3% in passenger numbers last year, due to the delay in finding an alternative route for larger ships calling at Venice's Stazione Marittima terminal.     
 
The 2016 ‘Cruise Special’ report published yearly by Riposte Turismo, which will be distributed next week during the Seatrade Cruise Global event.