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Roberto Perrocchio departs Venezia Terminal Passeggeri

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Perocchio leaves the world of cruising to concentrate on yachting
Roberto Perrocchio, who has been managing director of Venezia Terminal Passeggeri (VTP) since 2005, has left the cruise terminal operating company to run the marina he owns in Cavallino-Treporti, near Venice.

He is also president of ASSOMARINAS, the Italian marina association, and chairman of the Icomia marinas group, the global marina organisation.

Perocchio was born in Aschaffenburg in Germany in 1961 and has a law degree. He played an active role representing Venice in MedCruise for over a decade, including a board position where between 2010 and 2011 he was director EU relations/Adriatic Sea.

Perocchio also headed VTP Engineering, a company owned by VTP specialising in engineering solutions for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of port processes, and since 2011 he has served on the board of directors of Catania Cruise Terminal. From 2013 to 2016 he was national vp of Federturismo – Confindustria.

During his tenure at VTP, Venice's cruise passenger numbers grew from 850,000 in 2006 to over 1.5m passengers last year. However, the ban on big cruise ships from passing through the Guidecca Channel along St Mark's Square starting in January 2015 has impacted growth as Cruise Lines International Association members have been voluntarily complying with the restriction while awaiting a solution to the transit debate which the interested parties had hoped to reach with the Contorta Sant'Angelo Channel project.

But last November Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro and port authority president Paolo Costa proposed an alternative access route, Tresse Nuovo, calling for the dredging of a new 1.2km long channel connecting the existing Malamocco-Marghera Channel with the final section of Vittorio Emanuele III Channel and allowing cruise ships over 40,000gt to reach the VTP-run Stazione Marittima terminals without passing through the centre of the city.

This solution, which can be built in a year, appears to be the most cost-effective to enable even the newest, largest cruise ships to reach the terminal, Perrocchio told Seatrade Cruise News last month before his departure from VTP. All stakeholders have appealed to the Italian government to speed up the approval procedure. Yet it appears the government's main focus at the moment is Italian port reform, Perrocchio lamented.

VTP has not announced a successor at the Adriatic hub port.