Online workshop“The development of sustainable cruise industry
in the Pacific Arctic: Past developments and future prospects”

8-9 December. 2021

TRENDS OF THE CRUISE INDUSTRY
DEVELOPMENT IN THE RUSSIAN FAR
EAST AND THE ARCTIC
Economic Research Institute
FEB RAS
Zaostrovskikh Elena
Candidate of science (economics),
research fellow

Background of the issue
Arctic Council

CBPR
1993

PacificsectoroftheArctic

Currently, in the conditions of intensive development of
the Pacific sector of the Arctic, natural, environmental,economic, and political aspects are of great importance.

CBPR
2019

https://beringcouncil.org/ru/

first levelsecond level
third level

Resource: Krasnopolski B.H. (2020) Arctic – New Horizons. Spatial Economics.

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The first one reflects the processes ofsolving global problems of the w orld Arctic
The second level reflects the processes ofsolving internal national problems
The third one is the processes of solving
regional problems of a cross-border nature.

Main features of monitoring CBPR
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Content
1. Global cruise industry trends
2. Development of the cruise industry in the Russian Far EastERI FEB RAS

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1.

Cruise Passengers transportation
Global Cruise Passengers Carried and Grow th Rates

25
21.8

20

10.4

105

15.3

13.8

158.2

7.8
5.3

5.2
1.5

9.1

10.2 9.88

6.9 7.4
4

7.9

9.1
7.2

7
5.2 4.9
3.2 2.8

4.6

5.8
4.1

0

3.3
1.4

Major trends:
1. The global cruise market has witnessed continuous growththroughout the last three decades, a growth that wasinterrupted in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic.
2. In 2019 almost 30 million single passengers enjoyed a cruise
on one of the 400 cruise vessels calling at one of the main
cruise regions of the world.
3. 2020 turned out to be the most disastrous year in cruise
shipping history with the number of passengers droppingfrom 28 million in 2019 to just above 7 million. This
represented a 75% drop in traffic.

-1.6-5

Resource: Data adapted from Rodrigue, J-P et al. (2020) T heGeography of T ransport Systems

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The new conditions and protocols forserving cruise vessels will probably
add to the evolution of new itineraries.
4

1.

Cruise Fleet
Deployment of the Global Cruise Fleet126113233

22122153

Note: The boundaries of cruise regions focus on the main areas of activity.

o Shipowners are currently going through difficult times due to hugefinancial losses. Therefore, some companies had to stop theiractivities, which led to the arrest of ships and auction sales.
o For those ships that could not find their buyer, scrapping was theonly way out of the crisis.
o The average age of demolition of cruise ships for the first time inhistory has dropped sharply from 47 to 28 years.
o China's first domestically produced large cruise ship has been
docked for assembly in 2020 and is expected to be delivered in
2023. The Vista cruise ship will be 323.6 meters long and 37.2
meters wide and will be able to accommodate 5,246 passengers.

 At the beginning of2021, the cruise fleet numbered 412 vessels with anannual capacity of 22.3 million passengers.
 The largest share of the cruise fleet is occupied by North America 53%, followed by Western Europe - 32% and Asia - 12%.
Resource: Data adapted from Rodrigue J-P et al. (2020) T heGeography of T ransport Systems

ERI FEB RAS

Resource:https://www.maritime-executive.com

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1.

Cruise ports
Global cruise port system

More than 1 million
500,000 to 1 million
250,000 to 500,00
100,000 to 250,00

The main trends of cruise ports:

o The main condition for the development of cruise lines was
the presence of a developed port infrastructure and theorganization of operations for the efficient and reliable
placement of cruises.
o The availability of berths and the ability to receive a large
flow of tourists at the same time have become an
important problem for small ports in exotic places.
o The massive spread of cruise tourism creates a largescale problem for cruise ports, which are faced with adilemma – generating income from tourism orenvironmental and social damage.

 20th century - limited number of cruise ports and high levelof their visits;
 21st century - intensive growth in the number of cruise ports
and a decrease in the concentration of port visits.
Resource: Data adapted from Rodrigue J-P et al. (2020) T heGeography of T ransport Systems

ERI FEB RAS

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1.

Cruise shipping in the ArcticAccording to scientists, if the melting of the Arctic icepersists, then by 2050:
1. The North-West Passage will be limited by the passageof sea vessels, as Arctic ice will remain off the coastsof Canada and Greenland;
2. In turn, the NSR will give an opportunity to develop
several directions: national, transit and cruise.
Cruise ships visiting the Arctic
90
80
7060
50
4030
20
10082
65
52
3832
1848

5664

Prospects for the development of ports in the Arctic
 The development of Arctic ports ismore focused on the development ofthe extraction of natural resources
than on the needs of local residents.
 Cruise Port Projects: Nome - America,
Iqaluit - Greenland, Finnafjord Iceland.
Arctic ports of the world, 2019Large
(20-60million tons)

Medium(1-20 million tons)

Small(less than 1million tons)

Total Arctic ports
from all ports inthe country

Total Arctic ports

1117082 / 1179

Russian Federation

161320 / 68

Canada02

24 / 286

United States0033 / 666

Greenland01

1617 / 17

Iceland012122 / 22

Norway01

1213 / 135

Country

73

World Port Index 2019

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2.

Cruise tourism in the Russian Far East
The Eastern Ring of Russia

Kamchatka

Magadan

Korsakov

Vladivostok

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According to the results of the study, cruise tourism in theRussian Far East has the necessary prerequisites fordevelopment: long sea coastline; the proximity of the Russian Far East to the capacious
market of outgoing passengers;
 cultural and historical heritage;
 natural landscapes of tourist value; opportunity to develop new ecological routes.
Constraints : unstable economic situation;
 unbalanced tariff policy;
 Poor use of the potential of interregional
cooperation, imbalance in interregional tourism
policy.

Largest lines operatingin the region:
Royal Caribbean Cruises
Princess Cruises
Costa Crociere
Holland America Line, etc.
82.

Cruise ports
Seaports of the Russian Far East

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Port

Korsakov Port

Potential base port for expedition
cruises, carried out in directions
Bering Strait and Kuril islands.

The most significant problem is thepossibility of receiving ships
exclusively in the raid.

Necessary measures. Korsakov Port
1.
2.
3.

Resource: Zaostrovskikh E.A. (2020) T hedevelopment of Russia and Far East’s maritime transport

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4.
5.

Construction of a passenger terminal w ith the necessary infrastructure anda sufficient number of passport control booths.
Construction of a quay w all w ith a length of at least 300 meters (for ships ofthe Diamond Princess class).
Carrying out measures to increase the max imum permissible draft on
approach fairw ays, the inner w ater area of the port and at the berth (9meters), the presence of a turning circle w ith a diameter of up to 400 m inthe inner w ater area of the port.
Availability of at least 2 tugboats w ith a capacity of at least 2,700 hp.
Development of transport and tourism infrastructure.
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Thank you very much !
Zaostrovskikh Elena,
Candidate of Economics
Economic Research Institute of Far Eastern Branch of RAS
zaost@ecrin.ru

ERI FEB RAS

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