|
Europe’s
position as the world leader in cruise ship design and construction
continues to assist the industries growth, with the ECC report
estimating that during 2008 the global cruise industry spent around
5.2 billion euro's on cruise ship construction and maintenance in
Europe, of which the lion’s share of 1.5 billion were spent in Italy
alone.
Costa Cruises remains Europe’s largest and most
advanced fleet, with 14 cruise ships with a total guest capacity of
36,000 passengers. The Italian company has the biggest order book of
any cruise line anywhere in the world, including five new builds
between 2009 and 2012, all commissioned from Fincantieri and under
construction in Italy, with an overall investment worth almost 2.4
billion Euros.
Three of
the new ships are due to join the fleet in less than twelve months,
with Costa Luminosa delivered on April 30 soon to be followed by
Costa Pacifica on May 29 and Costa Deliziosa, sister ship of the
Costa Luminosa, at the end of January 2010. The two sister ships of
Costa Pacifica will join the fleet in spring 2011 and 2012
Increasing numbers of passengers
embarked on cruises from European ports, rising 10% to 4.7 million
in 2008. Italian ports remain the busiest in Europe, with up to 1.7
million departing passengers, indicating why Italy remains Europe’s
favorite cruise destination (with 23% of the continents 21.7 million
transit passenger movements) ahead of Greece, Spain and France. |
 |
