Slow cruising: Interview: Spitsbergen: FAM-trip: CostA cruisinG More GroWth For LonGYEARBYen A Winter to neW ports our SMALLer ports Joins Forces trAVELOGue Page 6-7 Page 19-21 Page 23 Page 28-31 CRUISE NORTH EDITION2015 TASTE OF NATURE Page 10-15 CENTRE SPREAD: CNNS MAP & FACTS PORT OF LEKNES - LOFOTEN GATEWAY TO THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLANDS IN THE WORLD Fishing villages, fishing trips, hiking, kayaking, Vikings, Northern Lights and Midnight Sun safaris Lofoten offers spectacular nature and adventures all year round PORT OF LEKNES (LOFOTEN) DESTINATION LOFOTEN P.O. BOX 203, N-8376 LEKNES www.lofoten.info [email protected] +47 900 35 379 Photo: Knut Skarsfjord CRUISE PORT BODØ Foto: Nadia Nordskott Foto: Bjørn Erik Olsen Your First Port of Call – North of the Arctic Circle We are proud to present Bodø as a new exciting cruise destination in Northern Norway. We can accommodate virtually all cruise ships and offer a great variety of shore activities for all ages, all group sizes and all activity levels. Bodø is Northern Norway’s second largest town, with modern Scandinavian shopping and restaurant experiences available. Among shore highlights is Foto: Ernst Furuhatt the world strongest maelstrom Saltstraumen with a visible presence of an exiting stone age heritage; the Norwegian Aviation Museum; Kjerringøy – picturesque historic trading post. Bodø also has a major airport with one-stop connections to most gateways in Europe. bodohavn.no 2 CRUICE NORTH 2015 Contents 4 Editorial: The tourists want to travel via the sea route 6 Costa neoRomantica: A different itinerary 10 Highlights in the North 16 Facts: CNNS Ports & Destinations 19 Northern Norway: Much more than the marquee ports 23 Svalbard Update: Bypassing the ban on heavy fuel oils 25 Harstad expands port and shorex offers 26 Northern Norway more than beautiful scenery: Events in the North 28 Cruising in search of the Northern Lights Editor: Erik Joachimsen (Cruise Northern Norway & Svalbard), Paper quality: Multiart Silk, 130 gr [email protected] E-publish edition: cnns.no/download/ Layout: Krysspress AS, Tromsø, Norway Ecolabel: The Swan English translation and proofreading: Gavin Tanguay Oversetting Copyright: Cruise Northern Norway & Svalbard SA (cnns.no) og språkvasking, Tromsø, Norway Cover photo: Polar Park Print run: 1.000 Photo credits: Nadia Nordskott / Spitsbergen Travel / Printing: Skipnes, Trondheim, Norway Port of Alta / Erik Joachimsen Meet Cruise Northern Norway & Svalbard representatives at Cruise Shipping in Miami, March 17 – 19, 2015, at Cruise Norway’s booth # 831. CNNS is an associate member of Cruise Norway, and represents 12 cruise ports. For more details, please visit: cnns.no CRUICE NORTH 2015 3 More arriving by sea It’s still the case that just one percent of the world’s cruise traffic makes it to Northern Norway and Spitsbergen/Svalbard. That means there are still many people who are yet to visit our beautiful coast and the world’s northernmost cruise ports. Let’s start with a few statistics. When Cruise Northern Tourism at latitude 78 °N is not allowing itself to be Norway & Svalbard was established in 2011, there were wiped up by such apparent limitations and is instead 318 calls to our 14 cruise ports with a total of 270,000 meeting this challenge head on. Shore excursions arriving passengers. In four years, the number of calls are now being developed in Isfjorden, which is close and arriving passengers has increased by 50%. In 2014 to the “capital” of the archipelago, Longyearbyen, the a total of 413,000 cruise passengers arrived our ports, world’s northern most cruise port. We can guarantee and in 2015 we expect a further increase of 5%. cruise lines that still wish to call at Spitsbergen that passengers will receive magical Arctic adventures that North Cape is our northernmost port on the Norwegian are at least as good as before. mainland. Checking the statistics from 1995 up to the present day confirms that arriving at the North Cape via More good news in 2015 is that Costa, which has the sea route has increased dramatically. Twenty years traditionally called at the four main destinations in the ago one in five arrived by ship, but the proportion is now north, will this year sail its smallest ship to completely two out of three. Cruise traffic has scored a knockout new destinations. Costa neoRomantica will call at Bodø, against all other forms of traffic to the world’s north- Narvik, Sortland and Lofoten a full seven times from ernmost mainland point, including the domestic coastal May to September. This just goes to prove that there steamer Hurtigruten. are great opportunities for new, alternative itineraries in the Arctic region. Spitsbergen is facing new challenges in 2015 following the introduction of a ban on heavy fuel We can already see the outlines of the future. The oils for a major proportion of this Arctic archipelago. passengers are becoming increasingly younger 4 CRUICE NORTH 2015 All photo: nordnorge.com and hence more active. And the older ones are excursions that have been specially adapted to follow becoming more active. This places completely market trends. different demands on the providers of adventures for these guests. The passengers want to get out and We think this is only the start – the tourist of the future really experience the nature and have memorable wants to experience Northern Norway just like the very encounters with the local people and culture. A good first tourists experienced our beautiful region in the example of this is the ascent of the North Cape by 19th century. By sea! boat and hike from Hornvika. Norway is literally “Powered by Nature”! Regardless of the mode of travel, the trend is that people are taking shorter but more frequent holidays. This is also reflected by the fact that the most popular cruises last less than one week. A cruise to Northern Norway and Svalbard takes between 11 and 14 days. In order to experience our region in a week, we recommend turnaround operations in the north. This also provides opportunities for butterfly cruises to Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Spitsbergen. Cruise Northern Norway & Svalbard is now close to Harriet Willassen reaching the targets that we sat ourselves when we Chair of the Board established our cruise network four years ago. The Cruise Northern Norway & Svalbard smaller ports are receiving more traffic and more turnaround operations are now being performed in Erik Joachimsen Northern Norway. In addition, the cruise destinations Managing Director have made a real effort to develop innovative shore Cruise Northern Norway & Svalbard CRUICE NORTH 2015 5 CosTA neoROMANTICA CAlls AT new DesTinATions: CruisinG new rouTes In the summer of 2015 Costa neoRomantica will call at completely new destinations in the north, all of which are located within a small radius. A total of eight itineraries will call at Bodø, Narvik, Vesterålen and Lofoten. “That’s exactly how we hope the cruise ships will make use of Northern Norway in the future,” says the Managing Director of CNNS, Erik Joachimsen. CRUISE NORTH MAGAZINE Narvik, is positive about the challenges to train new guides that can guide in that all parties are facing. “This itinerary both destinations and can speak several The first of the eight voyages is in March, is Northern Norway in a nutshell. The languages. “Establishing a common guide while the last is in September. Costa four ports involved complement each pool means we will be able to handle large neoRomantica has a capacity of 1670 other in a perfect way,” she says. “This calls in several places, so this is definitely passengers, which normally includes itinerary also enables the cruise line to something we are going to focus on in the guests from Italy, Germany, the United perform slow cruising. In this way, the future,” says an optimistic Parker. Kingdom, France and Spain. Coast has cruise line will save on fuel costs while not called at three of the ports – Bodø, the passengers get to experience the BODØ CRUISE NETWORK Narvik and Vesterålen – in recent years beautiful scenery in a comfortable and so this will be a new experience for the relaxing atmosphere.” Bodø, the southernmost of the four cruise line and the cruise destinations. Parker says that 1670 passengers is destinations, is in the process of The longest sailing distance is between a manageable number for Narvik as a establishing its own cruise network Bodø and Narvik, and is only 115 nautical cruise port, and that this fits well with the so it will be more united for the Costa miles. destination’s strategy to develop capacity calls as well as other calls in the future. Another new development is that Costa for shorex in line with the increased Northern Norway’s second largest city has changed its shorex agent in 2015. It size of the ships. “We will experience had modest 4300 arriving passengers in will now use Nordic Gateway, which was some challenges when it comes guide 2014. However, this will almost quadruple recently established in Norway. That in languages, but even that is something in 2015 to more than 15,500 passengers. itself is a challenge, but something that we will cope fine with,” she says. Narvik Costa neoRomantica alone accounts for the CNNS destinations can deal with at cooperates closely with nearest cruise around 13,000 of these. the drop of a hat. port, Harstad (page 27). Both destina- “We’re developing a good structure Grethe Parker, the Cruise Manager in tions are now making a concerted effort with clear distribution of responsibilities,” says the Director of Development and Communications at the Port of Bodø, Erlend A. Willumsen. “Good cooperation between all the parties involved – the agent, the shorex providers, the guides and the bus companies – is a virtue of necessity in order to have time for this to work,” says Willumsen.