COVID-19 Puts Copenhagen Cruise Terminal on Ice

With uncertainty surrounding business in general, and specifically the future shape and form of the cruise industry, it was announced the the establishment of the new cruise terminal in Copenhagen is postponed indefinitely

A very significantly changed cruise market, due to the crisis with the coronavirus pandemic, means that Copenhagen Malmö Port (CMP) will postpone the establishment of what was planned to be a new cruise terminal at Copenhagen’s Oceankaj.

With the prospects for healthy growth in the Copenhagen cruise market, CMP began the invitation for the tender process at the end of last year for the establishment 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 makes it difficult to predict when the market and situation will normalise again, the ongoing invitation to tender process is cancelled and the terminal is 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,” notes Barbara Scheel Agersnap, CEO of Copenhagen Malmö Port.

Last year cruise tourism generated revenues of $110m in the Capital region and engaged approximately 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 emerges again, CMP will decide when the process for a new cruise terminal will be relaunched.