Turkey welcomes the first cruise tour of the season in Kusadası

Cruise ships have started coming to Turkey for the new tourism season. The Celestial Majesty cruise ship with 1,780 tourists drops anchor at Egeport in KUSADASI which is Turkey’s among most important tourism centers. Tourists got of the ship and went on buses to Selçuk to visit Virgin Mary’s Church and the ancient city of Ephesus. Kuşadası citizens and small business owners in specific were happy to welcome their first guests for the season.

KUŞADASI is famous for its huge covered bazaar seaside cafes, bars and restaurants. There are many white sandy beaches in and around Kusadasi such as Diamond Beach, Paradise Beach or Love Beach, where you can try your hand at windsurfing or even jet skiing. Kuşadası is also very close to world famous Ephesus.

On the other hand, although revenues from cruise tourism stayed below expectations, Kusadası officials hope they will be able to make up for the bad times this year. In 2018 they expect to receive 140 vessels with 120,000 passengers.

On top of planned vessels in 2018, the two biggest cruise companies in the world namely the Norwegian Cruise Line and the Royal Caribbean Cruises are expected to realize tours to Kusadası, as well which seems to be a good reason to hope for a very fruitful season of tourism in Kuşadası. Moreover the officials believe said companies will increase the number of trial cruises to Kuşadası, in 2019.

Officials point out that both the number of tourists and the number of both ships and tourists fell due to negative developments in previous years and despite this “the number of vessels did not fall below 140 in 2017 and 2018. Due to activities such as participation in the fairs etc. the administration targets to increase this number to 600 annually and then to 1000, eventually meaning a potential of 2 million tourists.

Cruise tourism is very attractive for countries such as Greece, Turkey and all other in the Mediterranean region in particular. The amount money spent on board on a 7 day cruise is calculated to be around USD 1,719 and giving us a figure of USD 36 billion for the whole sector, not to include the money spent out of the ship. It is also reported that cruise tourists spend an average of 3 times more than a normal tourist which is USD 120 per day and USD at main ports. A simple calculation based on these findings give us a total figure of  USD 400 million brought into Turkey by the cruise tourism.