Cruise Europe promotes cruise destinations, ports and shore excursions across Northern and Atlantic Europe. Since it was founded in 1992 with 27 ports, Cruise Europe has grown to 130 members and continues to attract more every year. In the first six months of 2017 alone, we have been delighted to welcome the ports of Londonderry, Larne and Galway in Ireland, Scheveningen in Holland, Telemark and Harstad in Norway, Fredericia in Denmark, Holyhead in Wales, and Cairnryan in Scotland to our network. Excursions Ireland has also joined as an associate member.
Cruise lines and other tourism-related players can learn more about 15 of our member ports at the Cruise Europe stand (number 404) at Seatrade Europe in Hamburg, Germany from 6-8 September 2017. Cruise Europe will have a 96-square-metre stand in the central area of the exhibition hall, the biggest stand we’ve ever had at a European tradeshow. The broader industry can meet representatives from the French Atlantic Ports, Amsterdam Cruise Ports, Tallinn, Riga and Hull – and of course the core Cruise Europe team, which includes me, Nigel Lingard, Michael McCarthy and Susan Parker.
On 5 September, we will host our traditional Cruise Europe evening reception, this time sponsored by Germany’s Columbus Cruise Center. We will present the International German Cruise Awards at the start of the event.
Seatrade Europe follows our annual Cruise Europe conference, which took place in Bremerhaven, Germany on 25-27 April 2017. During his welcome speech, our chairman Michael McCarthy outlined the main factors that will determine the cruise industry’s future success, and how cruise lines and ports are handling safety, environmental performance and innovation.
McCarthy highlighted the requirements for the hundreds of ships in the global cruise industry to be retrofitted with the latest environmental technology. He also acknowledged that ports must immediately adapt their infrastructures to provide waste reception facilities for visiting ships, and explore how they can provide LNG fuel for the vessels of the future. In addition, McCarthy asked cruise lines to provide information about the composition of their waste to help ports find shore reception facilities safely.
“Often cruise ships do not win the hearts and minds of the community that they’re visiting,” he said. “We live in these destinations and we need the cruise lines to tell us about their environmental stewardship so we can help them tell a good story to the local communities and mitigate any possible negativity. The advances cruise lines are making in environmental stewardship provide a strong argument and through partnerships, we can develop a sustainable framework that is beneficial to them, the port communities and all other stakeholders.”
Jens Skrede is managing director of Cruise Europe