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TOURISM

TOURISM: Italian cruises set sail for the first time in four months

Italian cruise line Costa Cruises was the first to welcome passengers aboard in more than four months as Italy began lifting its coronavirus restrictions.

Published: 3 May 2021 11:21 CEST
TOURISM: Italian cruises set sail for the first time in four months
People wave at the Costa Smeralda cruise ship as it leaves the port of Savona, near Genoa, on May 1st, 2021. Photo by Marco Bertorello/AFP

The flagship Costa Smeralda left the northwestern Italian port of Savona on Saturday evening after being landbound since December 20th, when the Italian government banned cruises during the holiday season due to the coronavirus crisis.

Cruise tourism is now possible again – with safety protocols in place – as the country begins to gradually lift some restrictions.

“This cruise has a symbolic value for the recovery of Italy’s tourism sector, I absolutely had to be here,” said passenger Enrico Bergamini, a 35-year-old bank employee from Genoa.

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The ship left port with around 1,500 passengers on board – a quarter of its full capacity.

All passengers and crew were first tested for coronavirus and mask-wearing will be mandatory throughout the trip.

The 1,300 crew had first observed a 14-day quarantine before reporting for duty.

People pose for a photo on board the Costa Smeralda cruise ship on May 1st. Photo: Marco Bertorello / AFP

The Italian voyage will last from three to seven days, depending on where it stops on the Italian coast — La Spezia, Civitavecchia, Naples, Messina or Cagliari.

The Costa Smeralda is also set to resume its week-long cruises in the western Mediterranean starting June 12th, with stops in Italy (Savona, Civitavecchia and Palermo), France (Marseille) and Spain (Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca).

Another ship, the Costa Luminosa, is scheduled to depart from Trieste on May 16th for a week-long cruise to Greece and Croatia.

Neither Costa nor its biggest Italian rival, MSC Cruises, have sailed from Venice since the pandemic first pushed Italy to restrict travel last spring.

To the relief of campaigners who have long tried to stop giant liners entering the fragile Venetian lagoon, cruise companies have switched their departures to the bigger ports of Genoa and Trieste.

READ ALSO: ‘New model’: How Florence and Venice plan to rebuild tourism after the coronavirus crisis

Raffaele d’Ambrosio, head of the French arm of Costa Cruises, said the “desire to set off again is very strong among our customers”.

“We receive several hundred bookings every day covering each month until the end of 2022,” he told AFP.

Staff at work in the bar on board the Costa Smeralda cruise ship on May 1st. Photo: Marco Bertorello / AFP

“Cruising, like tourism in general, is one of the sectors most affected by the crisis: 2021 will be a year of recovery and by early 2022 we will be waiting for a return to normality.”

The cruise industry has been hit hard by the pandemic, suffering a shortfall of $77 billion and cutting 518,000 jobs between mid-March and September alone last year, according to the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA).

Before the pandemic, Italy’s 14.5-billion-euro cruise industry – Europe’s largest – supported nearly 53,000 jobs, according to the Cruise Lines International Association.

READ ALSO:  Italy’s tourism industry reports €120 billion loss in 2020

“Cruises were enjoying major growth before the Covid pandemic and I am convinced they will flourish again after this sad break,” insisted Costa Croisieres president Mario Zanetti.

His firm returned to the ocean again last September, limiting calls to Italian ports, only to suspend operations again in December. 

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HEALTH

Covid-19 still causing 1,000 deaths a week in Europe, WHO warns

The World Health Organization's European office warned on Tuesday the risk of Covid-19 has not gone away, saying it was still responsible for nearly 1,000 deaths a week in the region. And the real figure may be much higher.

Published: 27 June 2023 13:27 CEST
Covid-19 still causing 1,000 deaths a week in Europe, WHO warns

The global health body on May 5 announced that the Covid-19 pandemic was no longer deemed a “global health emergency.”

“Whilst it may not be a global public health emergency, however, Covid-19 has not gone away,” WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge told reporters.

The WHO’s European region comprises 53 countries, including several in central Asia.

“Close to 1,000 new Covid-19 deaths continue to occur across the region every week, and this is an underestimate due to a drop in countries regularly reporting Covid-19 deaths to WHO,” Kluge added, and urged authorities to ensure vaccination coverage of at least 70 percent for vulnerable groups.

Kluge also said estimates showed that one in 30, or some 36 million people, in the region had experienced so called “long Covid” in the last three years, which “remains a complex condition we still know very little about.”

“Unless we develop comprehensive diagnostics and treatment for long Covid, we will never truly recover from the pandemic,” Kluge said, encouraging more research in the area which he called an under-recognised condition.

Most countries in Europe have dropped all Covid safety restrictions but some face mask rules remain in place in certain countries in places like hospitals.

Although Spain announced this week that face masks will no longer be required in certain healthcare settings, including hospitals and pharmacies, with a couple of exceptions.

Sweden will from July 1st remove some of its remaining Covid recommendations for the public, including advice to stay home and avoid close contact with others if you’re ill or have Covid symptoms.

The health body also urged vigilance in the face of a resurgence of mpox, having recorded 22 new cases across the region in May, and the health impact of heat waves.

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