The Port of Quebec ended a profitable 2024 season with nearly the identical variety of cruise arrivals it welcomed in 2023, and that was a record-breaking 12 months.
A complete of 154,299 cruise visitors transited the cruise terminal in 2024, matching the roughly 150,000 recorded the earlier 12 months. The newest numbers characterize a considerable soar from the 92,000 cruise visitors who visited in 2022.
The port is rising, however in a measured and deliberate manner. In 2014 it grew to become the world’s first port to cap the variety of cruise guests at 15,000 per day in an effort to regulate cruise-tourism’s impression on the native inhabitants and infrastructure.
Even so, port operations are chargeable for some 10,000 jobs, each direct and associated, and $2 billion in financial exercise.
The port in 2024 welcomed 42 ships from 23 cruise strains, together with 112 port name visits and 28 embarkation and debarkation operations. Eight cruise ships made their inaugural calls to the vacation spot.
In 2023, the port obtained 131 port name visits from 41 ships representing 28 cruise strains.
Cruise passengers at present characterize 4% of Quebec Metropolis’s 4 million annual vacationers, who go to the historic vacation spot for its tradition, historical past, structure, and delicacies. The port in 2022 opened a new cruise terminal that may deal with 2,500 passengers at a time.
Summer season and fall season cruise itineraries sometimes embrace Quebec Metropolis on a mixture of Canada/New England sailings, and the vacation spot is ceaselessly a port name on voyages to Greenland and Iceland from northeastern US ports.
The 2024 season opened with the arrival of MSC Cruises’ MSC Poesia on April 10 because the ship sailed her 114-night World Cruise. The two,550-guest ship known as at Quebec on her solution to Greenland.
Whereas the Japanese Canada cruise season formally ends in November, the port introduced in 2023 that Ponant’s Le Commandant Charcot would name at Quebec in January 2025 as a part of her winter cruise collection.
The 31,300-gross ton luxurious expedition ship, a hybrid icebreaker vessel powered by liquified pure gasoline (LNG), will go to the port on her 12-night “St. Lawrence River within the Coronary heart of the Boreal Winter” cruise. The voyage begins on Saint Pierre Island and explores Japanese Canada earlier than concluding in Quebec Metropolis.
The Port of Quebec’s summer time season will get underway in Might 2025. Early season visits are deliberate by Viking’s Viking Neptune and two Holland America Line ships, Zuiderdam and Volendam, each of which will probably be common guests by way of the season on a collection of Canada/New England itineraries.
Different notable ships slated to name at Quebec embrace Oceania Cruises’ Marina, in July; and Azamara’s Azamara Quest; Silversea Cruises’ Silver Shadow; Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Jewel, and Seabourn’s Seabourn Sojourn in August.
Port Focuses on Increasing Inexperienced Initiatives
The Port of Quebec operates underneath a sustainable tourism plan that features putting in electrical plug-in capabilities at its three cruise wharves and reaching carbon neutrality by 2050. The $45 million shoreside energy mission is in progress.
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“The cruise season is a significant contributor to the prosperity of the tourism business within the Better Québec Metropolis space. Not solely does it make an vital financial contribution, it additionally offers an distinctive worldwide showcase,” mentioned Robert Mercure, basic supervisor of Vacation spot Quebec.
“We’re delighted to see how the port and the business are taking steps to make cruises more and more eco-responsible,” added Mercure.
In its 2035 Imaginative and prescient Plan, the port’s targets embrace shore energy implementation; decreasing air air pollution; and constructing native and worldwide partnerships in environmental administration, amongst others.
