The common goal is to further develop the cruise industry and increase the tourists in the surrounding cities and territories through the redevelopment of the port. The “Consortium” will invest 41 million euros in the construction. During the press conference, the project illustrated by the authorities and company representatives will contribute to the transformation of the La Spezia waterfront.
We had anticipated it in February and it is now official: the project for the new cruise terminal in La Spezia will be implemented, with a public-private partnership, by the “Consortium” of Royal Caribbean (RCI), MSC Cruises and Costa Cruises, who are considered as the protagonist Cruises.
THE NEW CRUISE TERMINAL. It was the architect Alfonso Femia who explained the project of the cruise terminal, “it is characterized by the horizontal stratification of transparent planes with porous layers, joined by a large urban, monumental and artistic pergola. The importance is that it will have the function in capturing and reflecting light in oreder to retrace contemporary architectural styles such as the architectures in Marseille and Barcelona. The one for La Spezia is a Mediterranean project, in which each space will have a role and an identity.”
The city has a high potential in cruise industry, thanks to the conditions of protection and nautical accessibility. And also it has a fertile location, from the tourists point of view, with destinations renowned internationally (Cinque Terre).
The new terminal is a part of the urban redevelopment in the heart of the city and will give life to an innovative context of welcoming passengers up to the best customer attention criteria of the three cruise lines.
RCI, MSC AND COSTA. “For the first time, three international players come together to create a work that represents the first dowel of the La Spezia waterfront, in which the public and private sectors will fit together,” declared the president of Regione Liguria Giovanni Toti, “On the cruise front, Liguria is the first region in Italy for the number of passengers handled, with over 3 million boardings, landings and transits. On the basis of the Italian Cruise Watch report， Genoa, Savona and La Spezia are among the first places of our country’s cruise ports. With the excellent performance of La Spezia which, at the end of 2019, could reach the historical record of active cruise passengers and 160 ships (+23% in 2018).”
Within the framework of port infrastructures and cruise tourism, the city plays a crucial game with considerable development potential as one of the most important ports in Italy to make it a region that is the first cruise destination in the Mediterranean.
“Our proposal, as the first public-private partnership in the cruise industry in Italy, was based on the conviction that the three groups and local authorities can together develop a modern quality cruise port inserted in the heart of the urban context while respecting the local fabric cultural and urban development and the relevant regulatory framework,” added Ana Karina Santini, project coordinator for the three companies, “We will provide our knowledge on the strategies and developments of the cruise industry, together with our operational and managerial know-how for the solution of the operational, logistic and qualification challenges contemplated in our project.”
In La Spezia, 23 ships from 12 different cruise lines and over 700 thousand passengers are expected in 2019.