Tuesday, January 20, 2015 - 15:09 by amsterdam
The newest ship of the Holland America Line ms Koningsdam, gets Amsterdam as her home port from May until September 2016. In the 2016 cruiseseason, HAL will have three ships sailing from the Netherlands. Besides the Koningsdam there are ms Rotterdam from Rotterdam and ms Prinsendam from Ijmuiden .
The arrival of the Koningsdam was announced Tuesday morning during a press meeting in the Passenger Terminal Amsterdam. Nico Bleichrodt , Managing Director Sales & Marketing for North & Central Europe HAL welcomed with the good news. "I had asked our headquarters for more departures from the Netherlands, but did not think we would get the newest ship in our fleet."
The Koningsdam , which comes into service in February 2016 , can accommodate 2,650 passengers.
With the expansion Holland America Line hopes to boost the number of passengers traveling from The Netherlands. In 2013, there were 114,000 Dutch cruisers. The figures for 2014 will be announced in March. The cruise penetration in the Netherlands, is currently 0.6 percent. Great Britain and Germany have a percentage well above the 2 percent. According Bleichrodt, a cruise penetration of 1 percent is a feasable target for the near future, that would mean 160,000 Dutch cruise passengers.
