Abstract
Cruise industry in Europe significantly contributes to the European tourism since many cruise ships visit various European destinations. Europe is the second most visited cruise destination, and the most significant part is the Mediterranean with its most popular ports – Dubrovnik and Venice. Even though the numbers of passengers in Dubrovnik and Venice decreased last year, they are still very attractive destinations for cruise tourists and have some advantages to which the port of Rijeka can look up. The aim of this paper is to analyse the importance of the port of Rijeka as cruise destination as well as to determine its condition and the necessary improvements. The results of the research show that the number of passengers in the port of Rijeka has been increasing over the past few years, which indicates that Rijeka is developing as a cruising destination. To determine the cruise passengers’ satisfaction with Rijeka as cruise destination, a survey was conducted among the passengers on cruise ships that visited Rijeka in 2018. The results of the survey show that the passengers were mostly satisfied with Rijeka as cruise destination although there are some aspects that need to be improved such as the offer of souvenirs and shopping in general. Cruise tourists in Rijeka mostly spent money on clothes and accessories, food and beverages, and organised sightseeing. The port of Rijeka has the potential of becoming an attractive cruise destination, but in order to improve, it constantly has to try to satisfy the cruise tourists’ demands.
Highlights
Cruise industry is becoming increasingly important in passenger transportation every year
Many authors (Teye and Leclerc, 1998; Qu and Ping, 1999; Andriotis and Agiomirgianakis, 2010; Brida et al, 2012; Sanz Blas and Carvajal-Trujillo, 2014; Chang et al, 2016; Ozturk and Gogtas, 2016) researched the topic of cruise passengers’ satisfaction with various destinations, while this study introduces information about the money spent at the destination, which provides a new insight for the destination managers and third parties indirectly involved in cruise tourism
The Adriatic region has a varied offer, and it is an attractive destination for cruise tourists; its cruise tourism is still heavily dependent on Venice and Dubrovnik
Summary
Cruise industry is becoming increasingly important in passenger transportation every year. Europe is the second most popular cruise destination chosen by tourists from all over the world, and its offer is quite diverse. The Mediterranean region is the most popular cruising region in Europe and the Adriatic Sea is the second biggest sub-region of the Mediterranean. This paper will compare the port of Rijeka with two biggest ports in the Adriatic region – Dubrovnik and Venice, to understand whether it has the potential of becoming an important cruise port. The survey on cruise tourist visiting Rijeka was conducted during 2018 to find out the information about the tourist preferences and consumption at the destination. The rest of the paper is organised as follows: Section 2 gives the literature review, Section 3 describes the cruise industry in Europe, Section 4 analyses the port of Rijeka and the conducted survey, and Section 5 gives the concluding remarks
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