Baltic Sea Ports Welcome Record Number of Cruise Guests in 2019

The cruise industry in the Baltic Sea continues to grow with a record-breaking number of cruise guests visiting the region as well as an increase in the number of calls.

The newly published 2020 edition of the Cruise Baltic Market Review indicates that 5,909,784 guests visited the ports in the Baltic Sea in 2019, an increase of 9.1 percent from 2018 and 16.9 percent from 2017. 

Shoulder seasons from January to May and September to December have increased by 10.5 percent, and there has been an increase in overnight stays from 730 in 2018 to 777 in 2019.

With a 37.8 percent growth rate in 2019, small ports are the segments with the largest growth.

Copenhagen is still the largest cruise port with 940,000 guests in 2019, an 8.2 percent increase frome 2018. The next most visited cruise ports were Kiel, St. Petersburg, Stockholm and Tallinn.

In 2020, Cruise Baltic expects guest numbers to increase by more than 450,000 compared to 2019 to almost 6.4 million guests, an increase of 7.7 percent, with calls increasing by 8.4 percent.

The cruise industry supports over 12,500 jobs in the region, according to a study released last year.