On Wednesday, 22 November 2023, AIVP and MedCruise held the 10th meeting of the joint Working Group (“WG”) on Cruises and Port Cities. The online rendez- vous was co-hosted by Mr. José Sánchez, representing AIVP and Mrs. Noemi Frascella, Director of the MedCruise Board of Directors. After the opening greetings from Mr. Nicky Guerrero and Ms. Anja Lohrum – respectively Medcruise Secretary General and Senior Secretariat Advisor.
In a short tour de table, the members who recently attended the AIVP World Conference in Venice (16 – 18 November 2023) shared their feedbacks and comments on the event and pinpointed the main outcomes and key drivers to be further developed by the WG to achieve new targets in the field of cruises and port-cities, to set up a long-term strategy.
A second part of the meeting was dedicated to the sharing of latest news from the members related to new projects, initiatives and achievements. Ms. Anabela Santos from the Port of Lisbon took the floor to report the results of a study carried out by the Administration of the Port of Lisbon (APL) and promoted by the International Cruise Lines Association (CLIA), in partnership with the Spanish University of Rovira i Virgili, in Tarragona. On the basis of this study, after having analyzed pollution concentration levels in the capital for a year, experts have arrived at the conclusion that cruise tourism activity has minimal impact on air quality in Lisbon. To learn more, please visit the official website of the Port of Lisbon.
The core of the latest WG session was dedicated to the presentation, by the WG coordinators, of the work that the group will start and develop between next December and February 2024 for building together a publication, that is conceived to become the first “issue” of the group. To this aim, members have been asked to set the key principles for a sustainable relationship between the cruising sector and the port-cities. The exchange between the participants allowed to start a beneficial brainstorming exercise to better understand and define the perimeter of the document and its future perspective and valorisation globally, through the joint networks of the AIVP and Medcruise Associations. Indeed, the document will produce a choral representation of the different topics discussed during the life of the working group through the voice of the ports, cities and external experts involved.
The meeting concluded with an internal discussion regarding the next steps of the WG and the calendar of the main activities which will involve the group in the coming months.
