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CRUICE NORTH 2015
More arriving by sea
It’s still the case that just one percent of the world’s cruise traffic makes it to
Northern Norway and Spitsbergen/Svalbard. That means there are still many people
who are yet to visit our beautiful coast and the world’s northernmost cruise ports.
Let’s start with a few statistics.
When Cruise Northern
Norway & Svalbard was established in 2011, there were
318 calls to our 14 cruise ports with a total of 270,000
arriving passengers. In four years, the number of calls
and arriving passengers has increased by 50%. In 2014
a total of 413,000 cruise passengers arrived our ports,
and in 2015 we expect a further increase of 5%.
North Cape is our northernmost port on the Norwegian
mainland.
Checking the statistics from 1995 up to the
present day confirms that arriving at the North Cape via
the sea route has increased dramatically. Twenty years
ago one in five arrived by ship, but the proportion is now
two out of three. Cruise traffic has scored a knockout
against all other forms of traffic to the world’s north-
ernmost mainland point, including the domestic coastal
steamer Hurtigruten.
Spitsbergen is facing new challenges in 2015
following the introduction of a ban on heavy fuel
oils for a major proportion of this Arctic archipelago.
Tourism at latitude 78 °N is not allowing itself to be
wiped up by such apparent limitations and is instead
meeting this challenge head on. Shore excursions
are now being developed in Isfjorden, which is close
to the “capital” of the archipelago, Longyearbyen, the
world’s northernmost cruise port. We can guarantee
cruise lines that still wish to call at Spitsbergen that
passengers will receive magical Arctic adventures that
are at least as good as before.
More good news in 2015
is that Costa, which has
traditionally called at the four main destinations in the
north, will this year sail its smallest ship to completely
new destinations. Costa neoRomantica will call at Bodø,
Narvik, Sortland and Lofoten a full seven times from
May to September. This just goes to prove that there
are great opportunities for new, alternative itineraries in
the Arctic region.
We can already see the outlines of the future.
The
passengers are becoming increasingly younger
