#cruiseliners - The Port of Dublin is to greatly curtail cruise ships using its facilities and may axe the business altogether.
Eamonn O’Reilly, chief executive of Dublin Port Company told the Sunday Independent that rising freight volumes and the need to create space due to Brexit meant that trade needed to be prioritised over tourism.
The move will be a big blow to tourism and retail interests in the city. Almost 300,000 cruise passengers docked in the city in 2018, up 32pc.
But O’Reilly said that the cruise ship business would “peak during 2019 and from 2021 we will be taking significantly fewer bookings for cruises”. “Our primary business is freight and we are committed to our freight customers — that’s our core business.”
Last year, 8,000 ships used the port,” he said. “Just 150 were cruise ships. It’s a small part of our business.
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