CRUISE NORTH - 2015 - page 6

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CRUICE NORTH 2015
Costa neoRomantica calls at new destinations:
Cruising newroutes
In the summer of 2015 Costa neoRomantica will call at completely
new destinations in the north, all of which are located within a
small radius. A total of eight itineraries will call at Bodø, Narvik,
Vesterålen and Lofoten. “That’s exactly how we hope the cruise
ships will make use of Northern Norway in the future,” says the
Managing Director of CNNS, Erik Joachimsen.
CRUISE NORTH MAGAZINE
The first of the eight voyages is in March,
while the last is in September. Costa
neoRomantica has a capacity of 1670
passengers, which normally includes
guests from Italy, Germany, the United
Kingdom, France and Spain. Coast has
not called at three of the ports – Bodø,
Narvik and Vesterålen – in recent years
so this will be a new experience for the
cruise line and the cruise destinations.
The longest sailing distance is between
Bodø and Narvik, and is only 115 nautical
miles.
Another new development is that Costa
has changed its shorex agent in 2015. It
will now use Nordic Gateway, which was
recently established in Norway. That in
itself is a challenge, but something that
the CNNS destinations can deal with at
the drop of a hat.
Grethe Parker, the Cruise Manager in
Narvik, is positive about the challenges
that all parties are facing. “This itinerary
is
Northern Norway in a nutshell
. The
four ports involved complement each
other in a perfect way,” she says. “This
itinerary also enables the cruise line to
perform slow cruising. In this way, the
cruise line will save on fuel costs while
the passengers get to experience the
beautiful scenery in a comfortable and
relaxing atmosphere.”
Parker says that 1670 passengers is
a manageable number for Narvik as a
cruise port, and that this fits well with the
destination’s strategy to develop capacity
for shorex in line with the increased
size of the ships. “We will experience
some challenges when it comes guide
languages, but even that is something
we will cope fine with,” she says. Narvik
cooperates closely with nearest cruise
port, Harstad (page 27). Both destina-
tions are now making a concerted effort
to train new guides that can guide in
both destinations and can speak several
languages. “Establishing a common guide
pool means we will be able to handle large
calls in several places, so this is definitely
something we are going to focus on in the
future,” says an optimistic Parker.
BODØ CRUISE NETWORK
Bodø, the southernmost of the four
destinations, is in the process of
establishing its own cruise network
so it will be more united for the Costa
calls as well as other calls in the future.
Northern Norway’s second largest city
had modest 4300 arriving passengers in
2014. However, this will almost quadruple
in 2015 to more than 15,500 passengers.
Costa neoRomantica alone accounts for
around 13,000 of these.
“We’re developing a good structure
with clear distribution of responsibilities,”
says the Director of Development and
Communications at the Port of Bodø,
Erlend A. Willumsen. “Good cooperation
between all the parties involved – the
agent, the shorex providers, the guides
and the bus companies – is a virtue of
necessity in order to have time for this to
work,” says Willumsen.
In the longer-term, Bodø has major
plans to attract larger and more cruise
ships. Within a two-year period, he
hopes a project to dredge the seabed
and remove underwater rock forma-
tions will be completed. “This will enable
us to receive even larger ships and, in
doing so, increase the volume of arriving
passengers. We have good capacity to
achieve this,” says Willumsen.
Stig Johansen from Polar Tours is
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