The Azores registered more than 100 cruise ship stopovers in 2022, and should reach a record by the end of the year, reaching close to 200, revealed today the person in charge of the sector at Portos dos Açores.
“If things continue like this, we will break the stopover record, now we will be far from the passenger record”, said André Velho Cabral, responsible for the cruise department at Portos dos Açores, the company that manages the infrastructures, in statements to Lusa. ports in the region.
Cruise ship occupancy rates remain below the values recorded before the covid-19 pandemic, but shipowners estimate that 2023 will bring a “return to normality”.
In this scenario, if the number of stopovers is repeated, cruise tourism in the Azores can yield close to 10 million euros.