Finally after 16 months Kusadasi has welcomed its first cruise ship. Due to the COVID19 pandemic everything hit pause which meant travelling came to a halt, but now things are starting to look more positive.
Kusadasi is known for hosting a high number of cruise liners per year.
The Cruise ship named The Blue Sapphire docked at Kusadasi’s Ege Port in the early morning. The vessel travelled from Egypt, then onto Antalya and then arrived in Kusadasi. The ship was unable to travel to Greece due to its sea border gates being closed.
Back in March this year a cruise liner arrived at a port in Bodrum but it was just to collect crew members and stock up on supplies before it restarted its trips. There were no passengers, though this time a total of 450 passengers left the ship after it docked in Kusadasi.
The Global Ports Holding Eastern Mediterranean Regional Director and Kusadasi’s Ege Port General Manager Aziz Gungor could not stress enough how excited they were to welcome the first cruise ship after all this time.
Umut Tuncer, Director of Provincial Culture and Tourism stated “that if the pandemic measures improve, cruise tourism could be revived further in the period ahead.”
A mega port project in Istanbul is soon to be launched. The Galatport is located in the Karakoy district and is expected to see its first ship in the coming period. It has been reported that the project is to welcome as many as 25 million visitors, 7 million toruists and 1.5 million passengers.
Galatport aims to be one of the top cruise destinations.
Source: Daily Sabah
