According to some recent figures, the European cruise industry continues to increase its share of the global cruise market with 25.2 million passengers visiting a European port in 2010; 5.2 million passengers joined their cruise in Europe in the same year with the industry generating €35.2 billion of goods and services and providing almost 307,000 jobs. However, far beyond the “macro” figures, it is imperative to gain a better understanding of the relationship between these macro-data and specific city-related cases. The article points out that cities (as cruise destinations but also as efficient services bases for the ships) are becoming more important in cruise marketing and that the economic link between the cruising world and cities (with their local communities) is something which is at the least in part governable and should be the object of an active strategy on the part of the cities. These conclusions are confirmed by the results of an EU project (“Cruise Traffic and Urban Regeneration” – CTUR), recently developed within the “EU-URBACT Program” framework and focused on the relationship between “cruises” and “cities”. The project, leaded, as a “lead Expert”, by the author, provided guidelines to support harbour-cities to fully exploit the economic and social development opportunities offered by cruise traffic. Mainly through case studies and examples referred to the CTUR Project, the paper both focuses the “local economic impact of cruise traffic” and summarizes guidelines aimed at optimizing the harbour-cities strategic approach to the cruise business.
