(haipo) - With 109 cruises departing from Haifa and 116 tourist cruises arriving in the city, the Port of Haifa is exiting the Corona period straight into an all-time record year.
In recent months, it was hard to miss the invitation to sail from the port of Haifa during the breaks of advertisements on the radio and in the printed press. This is how it is when no less than 10 different companies (one Israeli and 9 international) have decided to make Haifa port their home port starting this year, that is to say start and end their cruises in the port of Haifa, which is now a major departure gate from Israel, and a highly sought after destination for companies The global cruises.
'Started sad and continued with great joy'
"It is a sad story with a very happy ending," says the director of cruises and tourism at Haifa port Zohar Rom. "A little over a year ago, when the world was still deep in Corona and Israel was the most vaccinated country in the world, we managed to convince the Royal Caribbean company to take the first vaccinated cruises in the world out of the port of Haifa. Everything was already ready, the magnificent ship whose construction had just been completed, had already arrived in Israel for preparations, but that Operation "Guardian of Walls" and tough protocols in the field of the Corona virus smuggled the ship to Florida.
'This kind of thing hasn't been seen for years'
On the surface, it was really a sad story, because we were just about to make history. However, during this time between the announcement of the cruise season and its cancellation, an insane amount of bookings for cruises on the ship departing from Haifa were recorded. At night then I received phone calls from Royal Caribbean officials who said they had not seen anything like this for many years. This made the decision-makers in the various cruise companies understand the tremendous potential that exists in Israel and the Israelis, who are just waiting to get a chance to go on a cruise from Haifa. This is how it turned out that the season that was canceled was actually a kind of success story and we are reaping the fruits this year, and I hope we will in the years to come. The ships leaving Haifa this year are already full to capacity."
From 0 to 200 in an instant
And indeed, the cruise line in Haifa port accelerated last spring from 0 to 200 km/h in one moment. After two years without cruise lines due to the corona virus, as mentioned no less than 10 Israeli and international companies will start and end their cruises this year in Haifa port, some of them a few times during This year, some of them are coming on many dozens of cruises, some of them are mainly intended for Israelis, and some of them are for tourists who fly to Israel and at the end board a cruise in Haifa.
The most prominent of the companies that announced Haifa as their home port are Meno Shipping, which opened its season in mid-May, MSC CRUISES, which opened its season before everyone else, already in mid-April, and Royal Caribbean, which joined in August and offers about 20 cruises until the end of autumn. The three offer cruises between 3 and 7 days in the Eastern Mediterranean including attractive destinations such as Cyprus, Rhodes, Santorini, Mykonos, Piraeus (Athens) and Kusadasi (in Turkey). Following the success so far, MSC CRUISES announced in recent weeks that its ship will remain in Haifa until the end of December and will offer winter cruises to the port of Genoa and the port of Civitavecchia near Rome in Italy.
And there is more
Towards the end of the year, Costa Cruises will also start operating its huge ship Costa Venice from Haifa and it will sail from Haifa to Egypt and to Istanbul. To these companies is added Norwegian Cruises which will come in the fall with the magnificent and large ship NORWEGIAN EPIC, as well as Seaburn, Regent, Grand Circle Line, Oceania, and Star Wind. The last five are luxury brands, luxurious ships intended for tourists (mainly from North America) who come to Israel by flight, travel in Israel for a few days and then embark on a cruise in Haifa that can cost up to 1000 dollars per night per person. Along with all this activity, which includes 109 different cruises, there are another 116 ships that will arrive in Haifa this year for a stop of only one or two days for tourists who boarded the ship at another destination in the Mediterranean.
at the same time as the 'flood'
At the same time as all this "flooding", as part of the maintenance work carried out at the passenger terminal at Haifa port, structural problems were discovered in March that require continued testing and extensive renovation, so that in the meantime the terminal that may be familiar to some of the returning sailors will not be active this year.
In order to be ready for the "cruise attack", the Port of Haifa invested approximately 9 million shekels in organizing Bezeq to build an exchange terminal that was set up inside a warehouse located next to the terminal. The main part of the ambitious project, which was planned and built in record time, was entrusted to the "Target Market" company, which built large complexes in Israel during the Corona period. Over the course of three weeks, the check-in, border control, customs and duty free tents were erected, all of which are larger and more spacious than the complexes in the closed terminal .
In the check-in complexes, a communication system was established that includes dedicated optical fibers for each of the functions, as well as 33 positions for receiving the audience. The complex also offers Wi-Fi services to passengers free of charge. In the new border control complex, 20 manned stations were set up as well as 8 facial recognition devices for biometric passports.
As a lesson from last year's preparations for the season (which was canceled due to the corona virus and Operation 'Guardian of the Walls') of Royal Caribbean, the Haifa port adopted the procedure for depositing luggage as the first part of the procedure even before entering the port, and most international companies have adopted this process that allows the passenger to pass through the port without the luggage. In contrast to the departures at the airport, the transition at the Haifa port from the moment of entry to boarding the ship (including duty free) takes less than an hour, and after sailing takes about 30 minutes.
continue to grow
Zohar Rom: "Actually, today the infrastructure in the port is a barrier to continued growth, and we are already working to increase our capacity in order to become one of the three largest ports for cruises in the Eastern Mediterranean. You can definitely see the trend. If we had about 28 thousand tourists in 2018 in the port Haifa, we are already seeing bookings of about a quarter of a million tourists in 2023. This is a very significant jump and we aim to reach within a few years a million tourists who pass through the port of Haifa every year, this is in addition to Israeli and foreign passengers who will start and end their cruises in Haifa. This requires a modern and spacious cruise terminal, and without Spek also requires the assistance of other parties, such as the Ministry of the Interior in regards to border control, the Ministry of Tourism and the Haifa Municipality.
Not by chance
Investing in tourists always proves itself and pays for itself quite quickly. The ships we were able to bring this year did not land on us by chance. The Board of Directors and the management of Haifa Port have named the cruises as a growth engine for the coming years and a lot of resources have been invested to start and realize the potential. We met all the decision makers in the world who determine where the ships sail, and we continue the campaign of persuasion so that everyone understands what a huge potential lies in Israel and Haifa. There is no doubt that the ships that are filled almost to capacity this year with Israelis and tourists speak for themselves and greatly strengthen faith in Haifa."
Mandy Salzman, CEO of Haifa Port Company:
"Passenger and tourist ships are a blessing to the Israeli economy in general and the city of Haifa in particular. There are few cities and marine terminals in the world that have such a quantity of tourist ships, and we are proud to bring to Haifa the best companies in the world. This beautiful spectacle, seen from every corner of the city, will accompany us many times in the coming months will be expanded next year. If we were used to the term called the cruise season at Haifa Port, then the bookings for the coming years teach us that Haifa Port is becoming one of the only ones in the world that also maintains activity throughout the months of the year, so we can expect heart-warming winters as well. At the same time, we are continuing the plans for the development of the sea front The urban that will be a great complementary experience to the cruises' activity.'
"Cruise Talk" - the first and only one in Israel
In no coincidence, at the same time as the lifting of the Corona restrictions and the opening of the cruise season from the Port of Haifa, the Port of Haifa launched "Cruise Talk", the first and only podcast in Israel that is all about cruises. So far, about 40 episodes have been published as part of the podcasts - about the cruises from Haifa, about the cruise industry in the world, about the different ships and the different itineraries. Experts from Israel and the world participate in the various chapters, including decision makers from around the world, port managers who specialize in cruises, tour guides who specialize in the various destinations, and even the chief meteorologist of Royal Caribbean. For cruise fans, this is a paradise of information. The podcast is available on the various podcast platforms (Spotify, Google, Apple).
'Suitable for everyone'
Zohar Rom, the director of cruises at the port of Haifa and who edits and presents "Cruise Talk":
"The podcast is intended for anyone who is thinking of sailing on a cruise, or has already sailed and is thinking about the next destination, and that means it is suitable for everyone, those who are addicted to ships and those who are on the way to becoming addicted. We are uploading the podcast at a time when the cruise industry in the world is once again the fastest growing tourism industry of all. In my opinion, in 50 In the first episodes, we talk about 90 percent of the companies, about destinations on 5 continents, and give hundreds of tips and information that cannot be found in Hebrew anywhere else. The podcast also provoked sympathetic reactions outside of Israel, because there are almost no podcasts about the cruise industry in the world either, so we recorded and will continue to record Also special episodes in English."
from them. I wish they succeed like this. All the best to my friend, the CEO of Haifa Port, Mandy Salzman, for opening the development of the port. Well done Mandy.
Leaving Eretz Lacrosse is a great idea, but you need to prepare an infrastructure and a normal road to get to the ship, it was indeed a nightmare to get to the ship, with an endless rush, urgency, terror, endless walking, luckily there were shuttles for boarding the ship, it is extremely urgent to pave a way and an orderly approach Like any port in the world that within a few minutes you board and don't burn in the terrible heat
Very sorry, it was a nightmare of a lifetime, dough in and dough out.
We are a large group that sails a lot with Royal Caribbean around the world. We sailed with Rhapsody on 25/8 for 7 nights from the port of Haifa. We boarded the ship with leg injuries due to the urgency of the passengers with the luggage of all the passengers. It was very hot and there was no water to drink. I was on the verge of fainting and it took us about two hours to hand over our luggage because there was a never-ending queue and some of the passengers behaved in a manner of disgust with pushing and cursing. I recommended to the members of the group not to get on the train and return home some wanted and some resisted and finally we got on and we regret that getting on the train was a real nightmare and on the way back we also needed To walk a long way until receiving the luggage and even more of a nightmare was to get to the exit with the luggage, some of the group had broken wheels and we had to lift and carry the heavy luggage. We will in any case never return to Haifa Port and I really do not recommend passengers to come to Haifa Port and once again we had a nightmare of a lifetime
They must have polluted and fouled and smelled with all the garbage, the bags, the oil and the dirt on all the beaches in Kiryat, but what's the main thing, cruises are simply disgusting
As long as he doesn't build a normal terminal.
It will make it difficult to board the ship.
Getting in and out of the ship creates an unpleasant experience.
And what is the economic contribution to the city of Haifa?
Cruise tourism is quite bad, not ecological and pollutes the waters of Haifa Bay as well as wastes the most energy of any other type of tourism.
But that's not the problem with her. Let's say that a huge wall of huge white ships is beautiful in front of the downtown (it's not) - those tourists who do choose to travel here - are transported in dozens of tourist buses to Jerusalem or Nazareth and back. Haifa does not benefit from this tourism. It is not that thousands of tourists crowd the streets of the city for a day. They disappear from the port directly to other cities. So it's nice that the spokesperson for the privatized Haifa port boasts of several cruise ships, but that's not what will put Haifa on the tourist map. A lot of investment is required. At best, the tourists stop on buses for an hour at the Baha'i gardens and the moshavah, and what we "earn" is traffic jams.
The question is when will it be possible to sail together with a car again
It is clear that Latakia, the embattled, or Tartus, the grumpy one in Syria...
To all of us who are backed up with the yellow cloth of the dyed Kasila.. We stand for your mother and your mother-in-law. Even the flattery and vigorous golden licks will not help!
In tourism, workers are paid low salaries, as tourism in Haifa increases, the number of foreign workers here will increase and the weak population will increase.
Is it good for Haifa?
I think this will be a difficult problem.
Stunning.. I wish.. that he continues like this.. Good luck to everyone.. It is good for Haifa and good for the State of Israel... and only, may peace be upon us and everyone will enjoy