Copenhagen Malmö Port (CMP) has postponed the building of a new cruise terminal at Copenhagen’s Oceankaj, due to the pandemic decimating the sector.
With the prospects for healthy growth in the Copenhagen cruise market, CMP began the invitation to tender process at the end of last year for the construction of a new cruise terminal, which was scheduled to be completed in 2022.
However, due to the negative impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on the global cruise market, which made it difficult to predict when the market and situation will normalise again, the ongoing invitation to tender process was cancelled and the terminal was indefinitely postponed.
“This is, it goes without saying, extremely regrettable, including of course also to the parties involved in the tendering process, that the investment in a new cruise terminal is being postponed. Until a few months ago, we saw a healthy 2020 with a record number of port calls from cruise ships with almost a million guests visiting Copenhagen.
“However, with the arrival of the crisis accompanying the coronavirus pandemic, the brakes have suddenly been put on global growth – including in Copenhagen, where forecasts indicate that the 2020 cruise season will be entirely cancelled, followed by some uncertainty in the next few years.
“The new terminal was to confirm Copenhagen’s position as a hub for cruise tourism in northern Europe. However, now we will simply have to wait for the situation to reverse so that we can again focus on developing sustainable cruise tourism for the benefit of the entire region as a whole,” explained Barbara Scheel Agersnap, CMP CEO.
Last year cruise tourism generated revenues of DKK735 mill in the capital region and engaged around 2,400 full-time employees throughout the whole of Denmark – the majority in Copenhagen.
Once a clearer picture of the development of the cruise industry re-emerges, CMP will decide when the process for a new cruise terminal will be re-launched, the port authority said.
