OREANDA-NEWS. September 29, 2008. The cruise ship ASTOR coming to Klaipeda on September 24, 2008 closed this year‘s Klaipeda cruise season that started on May 16, reported the press-centre of Port of Klaipeda.
 
Cruise ship ASTOR. A cruise ship ASTOR that will moore at the Klaipeda Cruise Ships Terminal on September 24 (Wednesday) at 1300 is the last ship of this year‘s cruise season. ASTOR (built in 1987 in Kiel) is 176,26 m long, 22,60 m width and 6,1 m high. It will deliver 527 tourists to Klaipeda.

The boat sailing under the Bahamas flag is contracted by a travel agency  LLC Relita. Almost all of the passengers have ordered tours – 255 tourists are planning to visit the Curonian Split, and 166 people will participate in a tour around Klaipeda‘s Old City.
 
Statistics. Preliminarily, 33 000 cruise ships‘ passengers visited the port of Klaipeda in 2008 which is 8% less than during the cruise season in 2007 (there were 36 866 visitors brought by cruise ships). 46 ships came to the port of Klaipeda this year, 15 of them were big cruise ships (that are longer than 200 m). Global tendencies resulted in a decrease of the number of the cruise ships visiting (65 arrivals) – bigger cruise ships are built. Globally slowing down economics promote saving and thus giving up services that do not belong to the first-need list.
 
The port revenue from the cruise ships that visited Klaipeda seaport in 2008 constitutes approximately 1,8 mln. Lt (preliminary estimates).
 
The Director General of the SE Klaipeda State Seaport Authority Sigitas Dobilinskas noted, „This year, the port of Klaipeda hosted especially many big cruise ships – they were 15. It is obvious that a worldwide trend of building bigger cruise ships has reached the port of Klaipeda as well. Of course, the port of Klaipeda couldn‘t not feel the US economic slowdown. However, I am confident that the cruise season in 2008 was quite good for our port: our visitor indicators are just a little less than those for 2007.“
 
Promoting the seaport as a cruise port. 
2008 was a special year in terms of dencity of events promoting Klaipeda as a cruise port including organization of conferences, participation in exhibitions and international projects and associations.

On March 11-17, 2008, a Lithuanian national delegation lead by the minister of the Lithuanian Ministry of Communications participated in the world‘s largest cruise shipping exhibition and conference „Seatrade Cruise Shipping Convention 2008“ held in Miami (USA). Important meetings with cruise lines representatives took place during that event.

On May 7-9, 2008, Klaipeda hosted the 17th annual assembly general of the Cruise Europe Association, an international cruise shipping conference, and complementary seminars. This event was mentioned in more detail in international cruise shipping media and internet.
 
Also, the port‘s Authority is an active participant of the international Cruise Baltic project.

Moreover, in order to optimize cruise shipping in the port of Klaipeda, the port‘s tolls for cruise ships were cut starting July 1, 2008, in accordance with the commandement of the minister of communications Nr. 3-426 as of 30-05-2008 „Regarding the rules of application  of the Klaipeda State Seaport tolls“: a 20% discount is applied to the navigational and ship tolls for each 4th through 8th arrivals during a calendar year; starting with a 9th visit during a calendar year, a 50% discount is applied.
 
In 2008, cruise ships „Emperess“, „Delphin Voyager“ and „Island Sky“ used a 20% discount.
 
Upon the closure of the cruise season 2008, the Seaport Authority is planning to organize a national forum of tourism enterprises and companies working on the market of cruise shipping. The participants would have a chance to share their experience in promoting cruise shipping, applying the co-ordinated actions program, and to discuss means to optimize co-operation as well as rising issues and ways of solving them.