Friday, June 30, 2017 - 09:19 by ce-press
Liverpool’s 2017 cruise season saw 10 vessels berth on the Mersey in the first 11 days beginning June 5, including the biggest turnaround ship to ever visit Liverpool.
Almost 20,000 passengers and crew were welcomed at the terminal in this unprecedented two-week opening, generating a £1.5m (€1.7m) boost to Liverpool’s tourism economy.
To celebrate, the city staged two special quayside concerts/sailaway shows as part of the terminal’s 10th anniversary programme of events, A Decade Making Waves.
The season began with the Mersey debut of Silversea Whisper followed the next day by Cruise & Maritime Voyages’ Magellan. With a capacity of 1,500 passengers, she is the largest vessel to turnaround in the city. A new addition to the city’s cruise calendar was Celebrity Eclipse which made an inaugural call on June 14.
Liverpool is already set for a record-breaking year in 2017 with 63 calls and 111,000 passengers and crew forecast.
Since Liverpool Cruise Terminal opened in 2007, it has welcomed 355 cruiseships carrying over 700,000 international passengers and crew, generated £50m (€57m) to the local economy with an additional 20m gt of shipping traffic to the River Mersey.
Liverpool City Council is now looking to expand the city’s cruise sector and recently appointed a technical team to develop a new permanent Cruise Passenger Facility on the River Mersey. The team will initially work on developing a detailed design on the proposed £50m facility before submitting a planning application for the former Princes Jetty, off Princes Parade, later this year.
Further applications could potentially include supplemental projects with a new 200-room hotel and 1,100-plus multi-storey car park to enhance the city’s capabilities in handling the next generation of turnaround cruises.
