By Thanos Pallis
Having attended the most successful Posidonia Events Sea Tourism Forum 2025, I am pleased to share with PortEconomcs readers some extracts, personal perspectives & standout figures:
1️⃣ Strong forecasts for 42m Passengers by 2028 (Source: CLIA in Europe) – implies: > 200 million port passenger movements
2️⃣ Innovative & brave initiatives by several cruise lines – so bad that the general public prefers stereotypes.
3️⃣ Plenty of initiatives to enhance hashtag#sustainability – nice to see a comprehensive approach by the cruise industry
4️⃣ Cruise is not afraid to discuss and dismiss “over-tourism” on factual information – putting the hashtag#records right is too important
5️⃣ Start preparing for the European Commission initiatives on the new European Port Strategy & European Tourism Strategy – time for CLIA | Cruise Lines International Association, cruise ports associations & destinations to upgrade their role in policy-making
6️⃣ Somehow, “Private islands in the Mediterranean” part of the discussion – let’s hope that the discussion will fade away sooner rather than later.
7️⃣ Ports tend to lag in advancing the transition to reality; much work is needed to adapt. It’s nice to see that MedCruise works to advance collaboration on several fronts.
In Greece:
8️⃣ The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection transforms Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) as the ‘embarkation point’ for its guests – congratulations to all involved
9️⃣ Port of Piraeus has promised cruise lines that the expansion of the port will be ready in less than 1.000 days – let the countdown start
🔟 Everyone calls for a national port policy and a national cruise port policy – so it’s a pity that the national administration has stood inactive for too long.
Some perspectives put forward by yours truly
➡️ The better we understand the real impact, the more responsibly we can develop cruise tourism
➡️ Long-term planning in sea tourism depends on shared, understood, and used data across all stakeholders.
➡️ We need fewer buzzwords and more facts to develop an earnest dialogue
➡️ Cruise lines remain unhappy with surprising changes in the regulatory framework – long-term planning is too important.
Standout figures of the presented study, by PortEconomics member George Vaggelas and yours truly, on the contribution of cruising to the local economy in Heraklion, based on >7,000 pax and crew surveys collected across a full cruise season.
➡️ Approx 500,000 cruise visitors call at Heraklion, (82% first-time visitors
➡️ 62% expressed an intent to return
➡️ 72 % would recommend Heraklion to others
➡️ On average, pax spent >50 euros during their stay ashore
➡️ Average spending of those using Heraklion for homeporting was double that of transit pax.
➡️ Crew members, when disembarking, spent close to 200 euros each.
➡️ These flows contribute to >520 full-time equivalent jobs
The study had been commissioned by the Heraklion Port Authority SA.
