Monday, June 29, 2020 - 11:59 by ce-press
Copenhagen Malmo Port (CMP) has postponed the establishment of a new cruise terminal at Copenhagen’s Oceankaj (pictured).
With the prospects for healthy growth in the Copenhagen cruise market, CMP began the invitation for the tender process at the end of last year with completion scheduled for late 2022. However due to the negative impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on the global cruise market, which makes it difficult to predict when the market and situation will normalise again, the ongoing invitation to tender process is cancelled and the terminal is indefinitely postponed.
Barbara Scheel Agersnap, ceo CMP, comments: “This is, it goes without saying, extremely regrettable … Until a few months ago, we saw a healthy 2020 with a record number of port calls from cruiseships with almost a million guests visiting Copenhagen. However, with the arrival of the crisis accompanying the coronavirus pandemic, the brakes have suddenly been put on global growth, including in Copenhagen, where forecasts indicate that the 2020 cruise season will be entirely cancelled, followed by some uncertainty in the next few years.
“The new terminal was to confirm Copenhagen’s position as a hub for cruise tourism in northern Europe, however now we will simply have to wait for the situation to reverse so that we can again focus on developing sustainable cruise tourism for the benefit of the entire region as a whole.”
Last year cruise tourism generated revenues of DKK 735 million (€98.6 million) in the capital region and engaged approximately 2,400 full-time employees throughout the whole of Denmark, the majority in Copenhagen.
Once a clearer picture of the development of the cruise industry emerges again, CMP will decide when the process for a new cruise terminal will be relaunched. Henrik Ahlqvist, head of cruise and ferries CMP, says: “Hopefully we can restart the project during next year. We are still monitoring the authorities decision about reopening. Right now they state that August 31 is the date for reopening.”
