Costa Crociere took the opportunity of Seatrade Med arriving in Naples to show its longstanding links with the port and city. A 20% shareholder in Terminal Napoli, Costa has been operating in Naples since the 1950s and seven of its ships will call about 90 times this year representing around 200,000 passenger movements.
Since April and until the end of this month, Naples has been a homeport for Costa Fortuna which has been embarking passengers every Monday, not only from central and southern Italy but also with passengers flying in from the US to join the ship’s seven-day cruise finishing in Savona.
In 2007 Costa ships will also make 90 calls using seven ships with Costa Fortuna returning on weekly departures throughout the summer, and there will be Naples stopovers for Costa Romantica and Costa Europa.
Italy’s leading cruise port Civitavecchia – the port of Rome – has been one of Costa’s main homeports in 2006 where two ships Costa Concordia and Costa Romantica has been based this year making a total of 70 calls bringing in excess of 200,000 passengers representing a small rise on 2005. Costa, on behalf of the Carnival Group, signed an agreement with the Civitavecchia Port Authority in 2004 for the construction of a new cruise terminal able to handle two ships and a total of 4,000 passengers at one time, with an option to build a second terminal.
