After five years with a near doubling of cruise traffic along the Norwegian coast, next year will see a decline in cruiseship calls for the first time in several decades. Several US cruiselines are pulling ships out of Europe because they haven’t filled enough of their available cabins on board.
Newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) reported that Carnival, Princess Cruises and Royal Caribbean are cutting their numbers of cruiseships to Europe and Norway. Wenche Nygård Eeg, marketing director of Cruise Norway, told DN there would still be some growth in the British and German cruise markets, but not enough to compensate for the loss of the American passengers.
“That’s too bad, since the Americans spend the most money when they arrive in Norwegian harbours,” Eeg told DN.
She stressed that it was “no drama” that the cruise market would decline for the first time after years of double-digit growth. Some hotels may even welcome it, because several have long felt they’re competing against the cruiseships and that cruise tourists don’t spend nearly the same amounts of money on shore as other tourists who need accommodation, meals, rental cars and other services.
newsinenglish.no staff
