In 2023, European Union ports recorded a total of 395.3 mill passengers, a 5.8% increase compared with 2022 (374 mill).
However, this figure was 5.5% lower than the 2019 pre-COVID level.
This information was revealed in ‘Data on Maritime Passengers’, published by Eurostat.
The report’s highlights included – 11 countries, each with more than 10 mill passengers, accounted for 97% of all seaborne passenger transport in the EU.
Italian ports recorded the highest number of passengers: 85.4 mill, or 22% of the EU total. Greek ports followed with 75 mill passengers (19%) and Denmark with 41.2 mill passengers (10%).
When comparing 2023 with 2022, the number of seaborne passengers increased in 16 out of the 21 EU countries with available data. The biggest increases were recorded in Italy (plus 6.5 mill passengers), Greece (+4.8 mill) and France (+3.2 mill).
The top 10 busiest EU passenger ports recorded over one-fifth (22%) of the EU’s seaborne passenger transport. These included six ports in the Mediterranean, three in the Baltic and one in the Northeast Atlantic.
Messina in Italy remained the busiest EU passenger port with 11.3 mill passengers recorded, followed by Reggio di Calabria (11.1 mill passengers) and Piraeus in Greece (9.6 mill).
Compared with 2019, only three out of the top 10 EU ports recorded increases in the number of passengers – Palma de Mallorca in Spain (plus 0.4 mill), Reggio di Calabria in Italy and Piraeus in Greece (+0.2 mill each).
