Displaying items by tag: 90 cruise calls

13th April 2017

Tourism High as Ship Visits to Belfast Hit New Record

#RecordCalls - A new tourism high as almost 90 cruise ships are expected to visit Belfast Harbour this summer, bringing with them 150,000 passengers and crew to the city.

Belfast’s record cruise schedule for 2017 marks an unprecedented period of growth for city tourism and investment which has underlined the city’s soaring appeal among cruise tourists from around the world but particularly the UK, Europe and North American markets.

Belfast has established itself as a destination of choice for cruise operators and visitors, becoming the second busiest port of call in Ireland and once again attracting more cruise passengers than Liverpool in 2017.

By the end of this year, almost 600 cruise ships will have visited the city since the first arrival in 1996.

This year, 88 ships are scheduled to arrive with the first arrival – the Marco Polo due on April 21., while Princess Cruises, one of the world’s leading cruise operators, which operates the giant 4,600-passenger and crew capacity Caribbean Princess has strengthened its commitment to Belfast scheduling a record 14 stops this year.

Delivered by Cruise Belfast partners Belfast Harbour and Visit Belfast since 1999, cruise tourism has been a major city success story. It is also an increasingly important part of the city’s tourism mix, along with city breaks and business tourism.

Full details of the cruise schedule are available on Cruise Belfast’s website here and Belfast Harbour’s cruise caller list by clicking this link.

Published in Belfast Lough

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Competitions

The most significant events for the Half Ton Class has been the annual Half Ton Cup which was sailed under the IOR rules until 1993. More recently this has been replaced with the Half Ton Classics Cup. The venue of the event moved from continent to continent with over-representation on French or British ports. In later years the event is held biennially. Initially, it was proposed to hold events in Ireland, Britain and France by rotation. However, it was the Belgians who took the ball and ran with it. The Class is now managed from Belgium.