14 cruise ships with 11,000 passengers visit Helsinki this year

The Port of Helsinki recorded 14 cruise ship visits along with about 11,000 international passengers during the exceptionally short cruise season this year.

Of these passengers, 80% were from Germany, 11% were from the UK and 6% were from the US, said the Port of Helsinki in a press release on Monday.

Compared to pre-COVID numbers, the figures recorded for this season were modest. Helsinki’s peak year for cruise traffic was 2019, when a total of 605,000 cruise passengers visited Helsinki.

The visit by TUI Cruises’ luxury cruiser Mein Schiff 1 on 22 October marked the end of the Port of Helsinki’s exceptional international cruise season.Mein Schiff 1 visited Helsinki five times this year.

Last year, international cruise traffic was completely halted by the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent travel restrictions for a period that ended up lasting nearly one and a half years.

As a result, on this second year of the pandemic the international cruise season did not start until early August, when internal border control between Schengen Area countries was discontinued.

“We believe that cruise traffic will recover to near pre-COVID levels in the next season, at least in regard to the number of cruise ship visits,” said Harbour Master Staffan Teromaa from the Port of Helsinki.