Last year Greece experienced a drop in cruise passenger visits and ship arrivals compared to 2016, according to Hellenic Ports Union “ELIME”.
The analysis points out that cruise ship arrivals decreased by about 20.5% in 2017 (to 3,415 in 2017, from 4,307 in 2016), and passenger visits fell by approx 11% (to 4,625,363 from 5,204,231 in 2016).
ELIME blames this drop on political instability and geopolitical developments in surrounding destinations of Eastern Mediterranean. The union cites tourism officials who claim that the overall climate of instability had sharply reduced cruise traffic at ports in those countries.
The top 10 Greek destinations remained the same as in all previous years, according to the data. The port of Piraeus recorded a total of 576 cruise ship arrivals and 1,055,559 passenger visits, in comparison with 625 arrivals and 1,094,135 cruise passenger visits in 2016.