Some 880 cruise ships visit Turkish ports this year

ISTANBUL

A total of 876 cruise ships have visited Turkish ports between January and September, bringing more than 1 million visitors.

In the same period of 2022, Türkiye hosted 752 cruise ships with 712,000 passengers on board.

The port of Kuşadası in the province of Muğla was the busiest one, welcoming 403 cruise ships, which brough 604,000 travelers to the popular resort town.

Istanbul ranked second with 150 ships and more than 260,000 passengers, followed by Bodrum with 74 liners and 71,000 tourists.

The conflict in Gaza, sparked after the Palestinian group Hamas’s attack on Israel last weekend, is affecting the cruise tourism in the Mediterranean Sea.

Amid the clashes, the Dutch-flagged cruise ship “Nieuw Statendam” left Israel and docked at the port of Alanya in the province of Antalya earlier this week.

Some cruise operators are diverting ships away from Israel, cancelling their calls to the Haifa and Ashdod ports, said Yusuf Öztürk, the president of the İzmir branch of İMEAK Chamber of Shipping.

They made calls to the Turkish ports of Marmaris, Alanya and Bodrum, Öztürk told business daily Ekonomi.

“Those changes of itineraries, which may seem to be in favor of Türkiye in the short term, could create disadvantages in the longer term. As long as the tension in the region continues, calls to the Eastern Mediterranean ports will decrease next season,” he said.

Most of the cruise operators, which began moving ships away the port of Ashdod, are sending those ships to the Turkish ports, while some of them headed to Egypt and Cyprus, according the daily.