PORT OF TARANTO, 05 NOVEMBER 2021 - The 59th General Assembly of MedCruise, the Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports of which the Port System Authority of the Ionian Sea has been a member since 2014, concluded yesterday in Barcelona.
The Port of Taranto is a key player in the cruise scene of the Med area and has gained a further prestigious role in the Association, thanks to the election of Silvia Coppolino, Head of the General and International Affairs/Promotion and Marketing Sections of the Port System Authority of the Ionian Sea, to the Board of Directors (BoD) of MedCruise. The Board - reconstituted during the 59th General Assembly - will remain in office for the next three years under the new chairmanship of Figen Ayan, chief port officer of Galataport Istanbul, at the helm of the Association.
Election to the MedCruise BoD - which, for Italy, also includes representation of the ports of Genoa-Savona (Cristina De Gregori) and the ports of Sardinia (Valeria Mangiarotti) - is particularly important for the Ionian port, which will have the opportunity to actively contribute to promoting the emerging cruise destinations in the Med area, as the Association has been doing for years at an international level.
The Barcelona event was an opportunity to reunite in person, after a long period of remote meetings, all the members of MedCruise, which is celebrating its first 25 years of business this year. Since 1996, the Association has brought together more than 140 Mediterranean cruise ports with large-scale institutional representation. Meanwhile, the port of Taranto is preparing to close this magical year 2021 - which has seen about 90,000 cruise passengers in the Ionian port city - with the farewell ceremony scheduled for next Wednesday, November 10 when, from the terminal of the Taranto Cruise Port, the port will bid farewell to the last stop of the MSC Seaside.
The 2021 cruise season is therefore set to close with the enthusiasm that will characterise all the initiatives already underway for the upcoming years.