Cruise liner business in Hamburg – a success story for the City and its Port

2011: Hamburg cruise liner port remains on target for growth. 2012: Hamburg Cruise Center expects a record result with over 400,000 passengers and a total of 164 calls by cruise liners.

Cruise liner business in Hamburg – a success story for the City and its Port

“On the one hand, this success is a compliment to our City; on the other, it's also a commitment at the same time,” explained Frank Horch, Senator of the Authority for Economic Affairs, Transport and Innovation, at today’s annual press conference of the Hamburg Cruise Center (HCC) Association on board the “Queen Elizabeth”. A commitment in the sense that the City needs to create the necessary preconditions to secure its positive development and encourage further growth.

In the process, the entire Hamburg economy benefits from the cruise liner business: shipyards, component suppliers, leisure transport operators as well as catering and security companies. And this provides outstanding potential for Hamburg: net value added and new jobs.

“In order to take advantage of the potential for this industry and to continually further develop the strengths of Hamburg as a location for the cruise liner business, we now plan to establish a cruise shipping initiative within the responsibility of the Authority for Economic Affairs, Transport and Innovation,” the Senator continued. Amongst other things, the initiative will be dealing with such fields as innovation and sustaina-bility, marketing and tourism as well as qualification and jobs.

Seasonal record for 2011

“The 2011 cruise shipping season was the most successful one ever recorded in Hamburg. In the process, the Hanseatic City is increasingly developing into an all-year destination”, said Dr Stefan Behn, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the HCC. While the 2010 cruise shipping season lasted nine months, in 2011 Hamburg was able to welcome cruise liner guests at the terminals for a ten-month period. Only the months of January and February saw no calls by cruise liners. “We’re all the more pleased that the cruise liner business year that lies ahead of us in 2012 will al-ready begin with a highlight in January,” Dr Behn announced.

The 2011 season was launched on 11 March with the arrival of the “AIDAcara” and ended with a double call by the “Amadea” and the “Albatros” on 18 December. Apart from three ship naming ceremonies, seven first calls, the record month of May with a total of 36 calls and the port anniversary with seven cruise liners, the opening of the Cruise Center Altona probably was the most significant maritime highlight last year. “This served to lay the main foundations for the future; after all, the dynamic growth trend will continue in years to come,” Dr Behn explained.

At the end of the season, the HCC recorded 314,500 passengers, equivalent to a growth rate of 28 per cent year-on-year (2010: 246,000 passengers). In total, 118 cruise liners called at the Port of Hamburg, equivalent to an increase by 13.5 per cent.

Hamburg as a cruise liner location is also characterised by the unique, location-based factors of this metropolis on the River Elbe: In September 2011, as part of a survey taken on the Facebook page of Celebrity Cruises, Hamburg was chosen as “the world’s most beautiful port entrance”.

Diversity at the cruise shipping location of Hamburg

In the past, Hamburg has succeeded in proving its worth as a base port – a popular departure and target destination. In total, the share of turnaround passengers who begin and end their journey in Hamburg amounts to 87.5 per cent. For the 2011 sea-son, AIDA Cruises alone positioned three of its ships (the “AIDAcara”, the “AIDAluna” and the “AIDAblu”) as liners that sail from Hamburg on a regular basis. “For the first time, we also managed to sign up a vessel from Costa Cruises in 2011,” reports Gerd Drossel, Managing Board member of the HCC. “The ‘Costa Magica’ called at the Port of Hamburg for a total of eleven times. During each call, both a change in passen-gers and a usual transit call was carried out,” Drossel went on to explain. As a result, the number of transit passengers grew substantially in 2011, to a total of more than 39,100. This is equivalent to a growth rate of just over five times in comparison with the previous year (2010: 7,201).

The percentage-based distribution of passenger origins also reflects a substantial change. While 91 per cent of all passengers were still of German origin in the year 2010, this proportion declined to 73 per cent for 2011. In total, passengers from 107 different countries were welcomed in the 2011 season. A wide variety of nationalities travelled on the ‘Costa Magica’, including Italian (5.7 per cent), French (3.6 per cent) and Spanish passengers (2 per cent). 1.8 per cent of passengers came from each of the U.S. and Austria, followed by passengers from the Netherlands, which accounted for 1.5 per cent of the total volume.

The cruise shipping port of Hamburg with its central location in the heart of Europe, is an ideal starting point. In 2011, the following percentage-based distribution of routes was recorded: 40 per cent of departures went in the direction of Norway (region: Os-lo, Bergen), 21 per cent travelled along the Atlantic west coast, 13.5 per cent cruised in the Baltic region (Baltic Sea), 12 per cent travelled to England, Scotland and Ire-land, 9 per cent sailed for the North Cape and 4.5 per cent sailed across the Atlantic.

2012 cruise shipping season will again exceed the previous year’s results

Ship naming ceremonies, port anniversary, cruise days or international trade fairs: Hamburg is the stage for the cruise shipping industry, and it is no coincidence that Hamburg was recently awarded the DEUTSCHE KREUZFAHRTPREIS as the “Cruise Shipping Port of the Year 2012”. And the dynamic growth trend from previous years is set to continue in the future. “For the 2012 cruise shipping season, we ex-pect 164 calls (150 departure and destination calls and 14 transit calls), equivalent to a 39 per cent increase year-on-year,” emphasises Dr Behn. Hamburg primarily is a passenger transit port and the authorities plan to further extend these operations over the coming years: In 2012, AIDA Cruises will reach a total of 48 sailings from/to Hamburg. For the 2012 season, the Italian shipping company MSC Kreuzfahrten was signed up for the first time and will offer as many as 25 trips from/to Hamburg on board the ‘MSC Lirica’. In addition, Costa Cruises will be increasing its offering at the location of Hamburg and will be positioning two vessels (13 sailings by the ‘Costa Magica’ and four sailings by the ‘Costa Pacifica’) in the Hanseatic City. Moreover, the ‚Costa neoRomantica’ is scheduled to call in Hamburg for two flying visits this year. As in the previous season, Costa Cruises will be carrying out partial turnarounds*, which will lead to a further rise in the number of transit passengers. (* partial turna-round: both passenger changes and transit calls.)

“The total number of passengers will increase to more than 400,000 (+ 27 per cent),” according to Dr Behn. Hamburg is well known for the wide range of its passenger portfolio, which underscores the attractiveness and diversity of the location as far as passengers are concerned. In 2012, 25 shipping companies have already registered a total of 38 cruise liners in the Hanseatic City.

Ideal conditions for the future

The German cruise shipping market currently is the fastest growing market in a glob-al comparison. The number of cruise liner passengers amounted to approx. 1.21 mil-lion in the year 2010. According to forecasts by experts, the two-million mark will be reached as early as 2015. The German ports are benefiting from the current underly-ing conditions and the anticipated growth on the German market. The present market penetration of only just 1.5 provides a great deal of potential for the future (Great Britain is in the region of 2.6). “Hamburg is in an ideal position as an outstanding de-parture and destination port and simultaneously acts as a ‘door opener’ for the Ger-man source market,” explains Drossel. The Hanseatic City has an immense catch-ment area. For instance, 40 million inhabitants live within a radius of approx. four hours by road or three to four hours on rail, “providing a large number of potential cruise ship passengers,” in Drossel’s confident assessment.

“The HCC association has an optimistic outlook for the future,” reports Drossel. For instance, over 100 registrations have already been received for the 2013 season. Drossel adds that “it is only a question of time before the first cruise liner is stationed in Hamburg all year.” Moreover, the first berth reservations have already been made for the 4th Hamburg Cruise Days 2014 scheduled to be held from 1 to 3 August.

“A passenger volume of 500,000 certainly is realistic for the 2015 season,” says Drossel, once again affirming the target set in the previous year.

In order to ensure that this potential can also be fully exploited, the Hamburg Cham-ber of Commerce, the tourism association Tourismusverband Hamburg e.V. and Hamburg Cruise Center e.V. have drawn up a resolution calling upon the Senate, Hamburg’s City Parliament and the Hamburg business community to consistently promote the further expansion of Hamburg as a cruise shipping location. The HCC is the mouthpiece of the cruise shipping industry at the location of Hamburg. The asso-ciation currently comprises just under 80 members, a cruise shipping specific net-work that is committed to exerting a decisive influence on the future design and plan-ning of Hamburg as a cruise shipping location.

Sustained success thanks to new corporate design

In order to be able to achieve a sustainable success in the field of marketing as well, the municipal companies of the organisation Fischereihafenentwicklungsgesellschaft mbH and HafenCity GmbH, in cooperation with an advertising agency, have created a new corporate design for the terminal facilities. This corporate design is intended to facilitate an unmistakable interaction in terms of all future communications measures and thus enable the development and maintenance of a clear, succinct and uniform appearance and image of the Hamburg Cruise Center, be it as an event location or terminal facility. The HCC will be using the umbrella brand logo for its external image.

“The first example of this is the brand-new image brochure of the association, pre-senting the cruise shipping location in toto for the very first time,” says Drossel. Readers are given a comprehensive picture of Hamburg as a cruise liner location, from tourism-related aspects and information on the terminal facilities all the way through to its centre of competence for the cruise shipping industry.

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