This is revealed by the analysis of Risposte Turismo: “A 10% growth in ship calls which were 2000 in the country’s 60 ports”
Catania – Record numbers once again for the Italian cruise sector: “The first half of 2025 closed, nationally, with a 6% growth in handled passengers (5.8 million) and a 10% growth in ship calls which were 2000”. This according to Francesco di Cesare, president of Risposte Turismo, on the occasion of the presentation in Catania of the twelfth edition of Italian Cruise Day, the itinerant forum for the cruise sector in our country, conceived by Risposte Turismo, a research and consulting company, and organized this year in partnership with the Autorità di Sistema Portuale del Mar di Sicilia Orientale. The event will take place in Catania on October 24th. “It should be remembered how, over the years, the first half has weighed less than the second in contributing to the total traffic recorded at the end of the year. These results confirm, further strengthening it, the growth trend of the sector to which the excellent performances recorded in the 11 Sicilian cruise ports have contributed, where in the period 2023-2025 investments of over 300 million euros were allocated in the sector, a value that should reach 500 million euros at the end of the three-year period 2026-2028,” continued di Cesare.
It was also an opportunity for a focus on cruises in Sicily but also a look at the international level with estimates for 2025 which see Barcelona at the top of the ranking, expected to close the year with almost 4 million passengers, with Civitavecchia in second place and first in Italy.
And 2025 will be a record year for the cruise industry in Sicily, with over 2 million passengers handled (sum of transits, embarkations and disembarkations, +10% over 2024) and over 1,000 ship calls (+17% over 2024). A milestone to which the results of the 12 regional ports that will have welcomed cruises in 2025 have contributed (Palermo, Messina, Catania, Siracusa, Giardini Naxos, Trapani, Lipari, Porto Empedocle, Pozzallo, Milazzo, Licata and Termini Imerese) and which will lead Sicily to almost double the number of cruise passengers handled in the last 10 years (in 2016 they were just over 1.1 million).
“Hosting the Italian Cruise Day means enhancing this integrated vision, talking not only about cruising, but also about territories that know how to collaborate and grow together, with their specificities, forming a System that wants to present itself as united and dynamic, capable of attracting new opportunities, transforming cruise tourism into value for local communities and strengthening the role of southeastern Sicily in the national and international scenario,” explains Francesco Di Sarcina, president of the Adsp del Mare di Sicilia Orientale. The event returns to Sicily after eight years, a region that has managed to carve out an increasingly central role in the national cruise geography and which, in the first half of 2025, has already seen over 800,000 passengers handled against over 400 ship calls (respectively +12% and +24% compared to the first half of 2024), highlighting better performances than the national average.
