Numerous Cruise Ships Arrivals Canceled

The number of cancellations of cruise ship arrivals in Icelandic harbors keeps increasing, since no one knows when cruise ships will resume sailing, Morgunblaðið reports.

According to Faxaflóahafnir harbors (the Associated Icelandic Ports), 48 arrivals in Reykjavík have already been canceled. That leaves 141 booked arrivals, some of which will likely be canceled. All cruise ship arrivals for April and May have been canceled. At the moment, the first booked arrival is for the Italian cruise ship AIDAaluna , set to arrive June 6.

Large cruise operators have been announcing plans to delay the resumption of their scheduled cruises, which had to be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I don’t expect any reliable schedules to be in place until borders start opening and disease prevention policies for each area have been issued,” states Gísli Gíslason, harbormaster of the Associated Icelandic Ports.

Last year, a total of 190 cruise ship arrivals were reported in Faxaflói harbors, that is, in Reykjavík and Akranes, bringing 188,630 passengers. This represents a 25 percent increase in cruise ship arrivals from 2018 and a roughly 30 percent increase in passenger numbers.

Most of the tourists came from Germany, or nearly 49,000, followed by visitors from the US, who numbered roughly 38,000, and 36,000 from the UK.

A poll conducted in 2018 revealed that cruise ship arrivals created 920 jobs in Iceland that year, and revenue from them amounted to ISK 16.4 billion (which at the current exchange rate equals USD 111.6 million or EUR 102.6 million).