Variety is key
Cruise Gateway’s partners - some large, some small
Cruise Gateway’s partners include some heavy-hitting partners from the sector – such as Kiel, Rotterdam, Bremen, Hamburg and Harwich. But they also include ports such as Esbjerg and Aberdeen, who are starting to build steadily on the advantages they offer the cruise sector.
“Our partners are not all the same and this variety is important to the success of the project,” says Sebastian Doderer. “We want to provide knowledge transfer from established ports to the new, emerging ones.”
Nadine Pelatz of the Hamburg Cruise Centre adds: “This growing cruise sector in Northern Europe is asking for more ports of call and we believe many of these smaller ports will develop over the next few years. Closer co-operation and best practice exchange between the project partners will contribute to the development of regional cohesion.”
Cruise Gateway’s geographical spread is also important, integrating peripheral coastal regions of the NSR into the project region. There is a perfect opportunity to develop the recognition and attractions of the North Sea Region by highlighting its cultural richness as well as sustainable, economical development, points out Ms Pelatz.
The partners believes that NSR has a unique chance to put the right policies in place for cruise growth – while at the same time taking into consideration aspects of sustainability right from the start. However, such aspirations are not achieved without targeted action. And once Cruise Gateway has drawn its conclusions, it will transfer the project findings to industry stakeholders and lobby for best practice at local/regional, national and European political levels.
“At the end of the day, Cruise Gateway will have contributed to a better known cruise destination North Sea, and will have opened up ‘white spots’, thus attracting more and new passenger consumer groups to the region’s ports and their hinterland,” says Mr Doderer.
Cruise companies are proactively looking for new destinations and new ideas, he points out, and Cruise Gateway is well positioned to tap into this. And there’s another environmental plus in all this: “If we can convince more Europeans to spend their holidays cruising in the North Sea, this means they will not be flying to distant places, with obvious benefits in terms of CO2. So we are convinced that pushing forward cruise in the North Sea will have a positive effect on the environment...”
Cruise Gateway has signed a special co-operation agreement with GreenPort which will lead to GreenPort’s first cruise event, in Hamburg next year. The Cruise Congress will be held on September 13, 2011 prior to the two-day GreenPort congress on September 14-15.
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