Five cruise ships with 7,000 passengers visit Kuşadası in one day
AYDIN
The famous holiday resort town of Kuşadası in the western province of Aydın hosted five cruise ships with 6,700 passengers on board in a single day.
Liners Celestyal Olympia, Star Flyer, MSC Lirica, Viking SKY and Seven Seas Explorer docked at the Ege Port on July 5.
Passengers of the cruise ships visited the ancient city of Ephesus and the House of the Virgin Mary.
Cruise traffic at Türkiye’s ports has revived after countries eased most of the COVID-19-related travel restrictions.
Between January and May, 176 cruise ships visited the country, bringing a total of 115,000 visitors, data from the Transport and Infrastructure Ministry showed.
Kuşadası hosted 95 cruise ships during this period, taking the lead among all local cruise destinations, while Istanbul ranked second with 32 liners.
Some 1,052 cruise ships are expected to visit Türkiye’s ports this year, bringing around 1.5 million visitors.
This year, 490 cruise ships are expected to visit Kuşadası, while the cruise ship visit forecasts for Istanbul, Bodrum and Çeşme are 200, 138 and 77, respectively.
The country’s ports welcomed 78 cruise ships with 45,400 passengers on board in 2021, but only five cruise ships with 1,800 travelers visited Türkiye in 2020 when the pandemic broke out.
Back in 2013, a record number of 2.2 million cruise passengers visited the country.
