Cruise line reports rise in passengers

Leading Italian cruise company Costa Crociere has this year already booked its 500,000th passenger, local travel agency S. Mifsud and Sons said.

With three months to go to the end of the 2003 financial year, the company has already surpassed the 460,000 passengers carried last year.

Malta is a port of call on its Mediterranean cruises. Forty per cent of bookings come from Italy, though the company has significantly increased bookings from the US, Germany, France and the emerging markets, eastern Europe and Asia in particular, have actually doubled their number of passengers.

Costa Crociere expects to continue this growth in sales in the next few years, with an increase from 3,370,000 passenger days in 2002 to 6,600,000 by the end of 2005. This will be backed up by a rise of about 80 per cent in the offer linked to the company's fleet expansion programme.

Total capacity is set to reach 19,000 guests by 2004, thanks to the recent entry into service of the Costa Mediterranea and the imminent arrival of two new ships, the Costa Fortuna and Costa Magica, currently under construction in Sestri P, Genoa.

Costa Crociere is a member of the exclusive World's Leading Cruise Lines alliance.