A ΄floating town΄ at Corfu Port - pushing the local infrastructure to its limits!
cruise ships
18 Jun 2019
/ 08:39
CORFU. With six cruise ships in port, today is one of Corfu Town΄s busiest days of the tourist season.
The sight of the moored cruise ships reminds one of a floating town. One of them has moored away from the jetty - much closer than normal - next to the road and the ferry boats.
At an approximate estimate over 10,000 tourists visited the island in one day. Possibly not all of them disembarked but in any case there are a lot more than the town can handle - which is bad for both the town and the visitors!
These kinds of numbers can only be seen on Tuesdays and Fridays this year. On other days there may be one or no cruise ships.
It's one of the really busy days of the tourist season with huge numbers of coaches and other forms of transport, masses of tourists on foot trying to find their way amongst all the cars, motorcycles and piles of rubbish which an emergency crew is trying to deal with.
One would think that it would be a good day for tourist professionals but the intense conditions make it extremely difficult or even impossible to take care of everyone. Shopkeepers in the historical centre complain that the majority of passengers are taken on tours outside the town. Professional guides are forced to call in colleagues from Thesprotia as those in Corfu do not have the time to take everyone on full guided tours.
Corfu Port Authority has on many occasions come up against the issue of carrying capacity at international forums. At these meetings everyone considers it necessary for municipal authorities to come to a decision on the issue in collaboration with tourism professionals and cruise companies.
Similar destination ports such as Dubrovnik and Santorini have managed to deal with the situation by setting a limit on the number of passengers they can handle in a day. As yet Corfu hasn't done this.
At an approximate estimate over 10,000 tourists visited the island in one day. Possibly not all of them disembarked but in any case there are a lot more than the town can handle - which is bad for both the town and the visitors!
These kinds of numbers can only be seen on Tuesdays and Fridays this year. On other days there may be one or no cruise ships.
It's one of the really busy days of the tourist season with huge numbers of coaches and other forms of transport, masses of tourists on foot trying to find their way amongst all the cars, motorcycles and piles of rubbish which an emergency crew is trying to deal with.
One would think that it would be a good day for tourist professionals but the intense conditions make it extremely difficult or even impossible to take care of everyone. Shopkeepers in the historical centre complain that the majority of passengers are taken on tours outside the town. Professional guides are forced to call in colleagues from Thesprotia as those in Corfu do not have the time to take everyone on full guided tours.
Corfu Port Authority has on many occasions come up against the issue of carrying capacity at international forums. At these meetings everyone considers it necessary for municipal authorities to come to a decision on the issue in collaboration with tourism professionals and cruise companies.
Similar destination ports such as Dubrovnik and Santorini have managed to deal with the situation by setting a limit on the number of passengers they can handle in a day. As yet Corfu hasn't done this.
