Royal Caribbean Sails Back to Colombia

Cruise liner Royal Caribbean returned to Colombia on April 18, carrying 2,500 passengers on board, after six years of absence. The cruise company said the Cartagena port visit is the first of 36 that Royal Caribbean will be making between April 2007 and May 2008.

Other Colombian ports on the Royal Caribbean itinerary, in addition to Cartagena, include Santa Marta and San Andres (near Nicaragua). The bulk of these visits will be to Cartagena with 13 more ships scheduled to arrive in 2007 and 18 in 2008.

According to POREXPORT, the Colombian agency in charge of the promotion of tourism to Colombia, 73 cruise ships have arrived into Cartagena in the last two years –35 in 2005 and 38 in 2006, carrying a total of 83 million passengers.

Colombia is seeing a double-digit increase (16.6 percent), PROEXPORT said. The agency’s tourism report claimed that 188,330 tourists entered the Couth American country in the first two months of 2007.

PROEXPORT president Maria Elvira Pombo said an increase of 100 percent is predicted in the arrival of boats to Cartagena in 2007 due to Royal Caribbean Cruises and Princess Cruises renewing their arrivals to the Colombian ports and also the increase in various other cruise companies that have arrived into Cartagena in the last three years.