Assesing Home Port Potencial of Selected Adriatic Ports

Abstract

The cruise industry has been constantly growing since the 1970s and is considered the fastest growing travel vacation segment ever. Currently, Mediterranean is the second most visited region, just behind the Caribbean. One of the Mediterranean cruise markets is the Adriatic Sea, which is becoming an increasingly interesting destination, with Venice and Dubrovnik being the most popular spots. While a port of call destination mainly needs to offer certain attractions to be added to the cruise line itineraries, homeports must provide much more in particular in regards to infrastructure and passengers’ services offered. Currently, the port of Venice and Bari act as main home ports in the Adriatic, while the port of Trieste is growing in importance although at the moment it does not represent a considerable share in terms of number of exchanged cruise passengers. In this paper, the author will determine the advantages that these ports offer in terms of home port adequacy and examine the homeport potential of two Adriatic ports, namely the port of Koper and the port of Split. For this purpose, the list of influential factors will be created based on existing studies but shaped to meet the specific micro conditions and requirements. These factors will be examined.

Cruise Industry Trends and Cruise Ships’ Navigational Practices in the Central and South Part of the Adriatic East Coast Affecting Navigational Safety and Sustainable Development

“…The Mediterranean region is divided into four sub regions (Figure 2), among which, the Adriatic is the second most visited region after the western Mediterranean region [14]. The Adriatic Sea is located between the West Mediterranean and East Mediterranean zone, in proximity to the central and north European market with high cruising demand and developed infrastructure.…”

Port of Rijeka as Cruise Destination

“…This is due to the high economic impact of this development on the port and the port-related city. In fact, cruise passengers are estimated to spend six to seven times more money in home ports that at ports of call (Zanne and Beškovnik, 2018).…”

“…However, Venice is a highly visited city in general; the city now receives around 30 million tourists per year, disgorged into the narrow streets and small squares. Therefore, it is mostly overcrowded, especially in the summer months, but not only because of cruise passengers (Zanne and Beškovnik, 2018).…”

Analysis of cruise ship traffic in the Port of Split

“…The cruise industry has been continuously growing since the 1970s and is considered to be the fastest-growing travel vacation segment ever [2]. Growth of cruise ship tourism in general is impressive -demand for cruising increased almost 50% in fi ve-year period from 2000-2005 [3] and then again by 50% in nine-year period from 2005 to 2014 and at last 20.5% in the last fi ve years [4].…”

“…In perspective of cruise passenger traffi c in the Adriatic Sea Split is 6 th with 15% of Adriatic cruise passenger traffi c while Dubrovnik is 2 nd with 16%[2]. In perspective of cruise passenger traffi c in Mediterranean Sea Split is 29 th and Dubrovnik is 12 th[6] and in perspective of cruise passenger traffi c in Europe Split is 49 th and Dubrovnik is 16 th…”