Three cruises at the same time in the port of Cagliari, one in Arbatax and passenger traffic in constant increase in all ports. These are numbers that confirm the return to normality for the cruise and tourist market, those expected for the long Easter weekend in the system's ports of call.
Starting, in fact, from the port of the Sardinian capital which, just next Monday, will host the Florence of Costa Cruises, the Island Sky of Noble Caledonia and the Clio of the Grand Circle Line, the latter in overnight from Easter Sunday. .
Over 3 thousand passengers, those expected in two days, who will visit the city of Cagliari - both with guided tours and independently - and the historical and cultural excursion destinations of southern Sardinia.
“A first and concrete sign of recovery for a 2022 which, with around 180 ships on the calendar, gradually brings the Sardinian port system back to pre-pandemic numbers, and a renewed appeal for dockside stops for several days; the possibility of embarking from the main ports of Cagliari and Olbia with the Costa and MSC ships and, above all, due to the now consolidated phenomenon of the multiscale ”, the Port System Authority of the Sea of Sardinia informs.
The Clio, in fact, will be in Arbatax on Tuesday 19 April. A fundamental step "for the relaunch of the Ogliastra port and confirmation of the great potential of the island's diversified offer on the cruise market, which will reach its peak in the second half of the year with several double calls by the AidaStella on Cagliari and Olbia".
On the ferry side, after a quarter of rapid rapprochement with the numbers of 2019 (just 10 percent less), the first ten days of April 2022 “marks the decisive overtaking with a 29 percent increase in passengers compared to the pre-covid period. Over 9 thousand more (from 31 thousand in 2019 to just over 40 thousand in the current year), those arriving and departing in the airports of Cagliari, Olbia, Porto Torres, Golfo Aranci and Arbatax, the premise for a more than positive tourist season for maritime traffic ".
"The concomitance of three cruise ships in the port of Cagliari, one of which will stay for two days between Sunday and Easter Monday to continue, the following day, on Arbatax, is a further sign that we have embarked on the path towards the exit from the health emergency and the full restart of the sector - explains Massimo Deiana, President of the AdSP of the Sea of Sardinia - We can finally turn our gaze forward, become protagonists in the cruise market and, at the same time, aim to exceed the numbers 2019 record for passenger traffic, for a season that, we hope, will make us leave behind two extremely difficult years. A long period during which our port system, precisely due to its conformation and compactness, has been able to maintain a decisive course and face the mists of the crisis with particular resistance, without ever losing sight of the strategic objectives to be pursued, among all the maintenance of the levels of passenger and cruise traffic at which we look today with extreme satisfaction ".
(Unioneonline / D)