There will be a significant recovery for the cruise sector from 2023 onward, executives in the cruise sector told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency, while pointing to global forecasts that see cruises returning to the same levels as 2019 from 2024. The current year was a transitional period, the same executives claimed, with cruises operating at 70-80 pct capacity.
The number of passengers in 2022 was up 32.5 pct relative to 2021, with 22.5 million passengers from 17 million, after a slump due to pandemic lockdowns in 2020, when the number of passengers dropped to 8 million, from 29 million in 2019. The forecast for 2023 is 26.5 million passengers, rising to 29.8 million in 2024 and 31.5 million in 2025.
The figures for cruiseship arrivals in Greece are also encouraging, with 4,939 ship arrivals expected in 2022, up from 2,064 the previous year, and 3,979 in 2019 before the pandemic. The top 10 destinations for cruise ship arrivals in 2022 were the port of Piraeus, Santorini, Corfu, Mykonos, Rhodes, Iraklion, Patmos, Katakolo, Hania and Kefallonia.
