Istanbul targets 1.5 Million passengers in cruise tourism after 2023

The number of cruise ships arriving in Istanbul in 10 months reached 165 and the number of passengers reached 225 thousand 907. While the sector expects 200 ships and 400 thousand passengers in 2023, the target was set to reach 1,5 million passengers.

Cruise tourism, had experienced great loss due to the terrorist events in Istanbul starting from 2015 and the construction process of the port known as the “Tuesday Market Place”. After 5 years, as the cruise port was ready to start serving again with the name Galataport, all the plans were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected the whole world at the beginning of 2020.

Until 2021, the cruise industry almost come to a standstill. With the decrease in the impact of the pandemic, the first ship docked in Galataport in October 2021.

The number of ships arriving in Istanbul in the 10 month of this year increased by 205.55 percent compared to 2016, the year before the closure of the port and rose to 165. The number of passengers reached 225 thousand 907. In this process, some large cruise companies have started to position Istanbul as the main port, while the town started to have more and more share from cruise tourism, the volume of which is 35 billion dollars.

RESERVATIONS FOR 2023 BEGAN COMING IN

Galataport Istanbul Port Operations Deputy General Manager stated that they had started to receive the bookings for the year 2023 long in advance and said, “We currently have 194 cruise ship bookings for the coming year. We are working to increase this figure. Our goal is to reach the number to 200 cruises and 400 thousand passengers. After 2023, we anticipate that we will be operating at full capacity and hosting 1.5 million cruise passengers and crew per year.”