Cruise-ferry lines in Norway that run to Germany, Denmark and Sweden claim they welcome competition from a new player that announced its entry into the market this week. The recently formed Holland Norway Lines has launched plans to sail between Norway’s southern city of Kristiansand and Eemshaven in the Netherlands next spring.
“Competition is good and sharpens us all,” Nina Moland Andersen, sales and marketing chief for Norwegian-based Color Line, told state broadcaster NRK. “Even more people will be able to choose the sea route.”
Holland Norway Lines’ planned route using a vessel chartered from the Tallink Group, which is active in the Baltic, will take 18 hours and run three times a week from Kristiansand to Eemshaven. The 20-year-old MS Romantika, billed as being “modernized,” has 700 cabins and can carry 1,500 passengers and 350 cars. It most recently has been chartered out for routes in the Baltic and Mediterannean.
The vessel is currently in Glasgow, where it was chartered in to provide extra accommodation for delegates attending the UN Climate Conference when hotel space ran low.
newsinenglish.no staff
