The representatives of cruise companies who note that said number will increase with the opening of Galataport say “In such case, not only Istanbul but we will win as well. Istanbul outperforms many important destinations to include Barcelona in the number of extra tours, as well as the amount of revenues”
Istanbul, which has been unable to accommodate cruise ships for several years, is preparing to launch again in the year 2020. The addition of Istanbul to the route of many cruise companies, have made both the tourism sector and the business people in the area happy and hopeful for the coming days.
While international ship companies seem to be delighted with new cruise reservations this year, representatives of international ship companies in Turkey point out that the earnings of ship companies in Istanbul are very high.
They say, “Thanks to extra tours, Istanbul has even surpassed Barcelona which is one of the world's most popular ports in this sector”. They emphasize there are so many places to visit in Istanbul and passengers arriving in this city want to do sight-seeing on group tours rather than individually.
Same passengers who pay € 1,000 for a cruise tour of 5-7 nights can afford to pay an extra of € 150 for a tour in Istanbul. Based on statistics, while minimum 85 per cent of the passengers arriving in Istanbul go on said extra tours, this figure goes down to 40-45 percent in Barcelona. Eventually, the turnover of a ship obtained from extra tours in Istanbul can exceed € 450 thousand.
While more than 2 million tourists came to Turkey by ship in 2012, the number of passengers arriving in the first 11 months of 2019 was 283 thousand. The number of passengers arriving in Istanbul increased to 689 thousand in 2013 but it went down to zero in 2018.
The reason for this certainly was bad events experienced in 2016 and beyond, as well as the fact the port at Karakoy was closed for renovation.
Thankfully, the renovation process of said port at Karakoy is about to be completed and Galataport (as it is named) will host its first ship in April. Although it is announced that 64 ships will arrive at Galataport in 2020, the actual boom is expected to be in 2021 and 2022.
