Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - 09:10 by ce-press
Torstein Hagen’s new cruise line, Viking Ocean Cruises, will use Bergen as a homeport with first ship, Viking Star, being baptised in Bergen on May 17. She will make four calls at Skoltegrunnskaien in town.
Total numbers though are down. Helen Hovland, maketing manager cruise Port of Bergen, commented: “For 2015 it looks like the Port of Bergen, together with the rest of Norway, will have a decrease. The reason for that is likely the new ECA directive that was established in January. Until now we have 272 calls for 2015, and 202 for 2016. The trend is larger cruise ships, and we don’t think it will influence on the number of cruise passengers.”
The season however is getting longer with last year’s starting February 27 with the arrival of Saga Sapphire and ending on November 8 with Marco Polo. Hovland said: “The cruise season has really been stretched, and the 2015 season started already on the January 2 with Black Watch”.
Last year there were 323 calls and 442,749 cruise passengers. Germans and British still dominate but the latter fell in numbers from 129,014 to 96,678 while the Germans increased to 161,916. In addition the number of French passengers almost doubled those in 2013 to 30,000. Bergen had 11 first call arrivals/maiden voyages this year.
