Changes in Sea Cruise Tourism in Gdynia

Abstract

Maritime tourism is one of the fastest growing tourist branches, bringing significant revenue to the cities and ports that develop it. Baltic cruises generates about 20% of all maritime tourist traffic. However, Polish ports, as shown through the example of Gdynia, have a small marketshare. The article presents results of the analysis of changes in the volume of traffic of cruise ships and the number of tourists arriving in Gdynia. The undertaken research is aimed at assessing and indicating the direction of changes in maritime tourist traffic in Gdynia in the years 1997-2016. The subject of the study are changes in the number of visits of cruise ships and tourists in the port of Gdynia. The data for the analysis of the traffic volume of the cruise traffic come from the reports and information from the Port of Gdynia Authority S.A. in Gdynia and cited in the literature. The work used basic statistical methods, including the analysis of changes in the volume of tourist traffic in particular years. It has made it possible to indicate a decisive decrease in the number of visits made by cruisers in Gdynia in the analyzed period, with the number of tourists stabilizing at 80-90 thousand per year in the last four years. However, this number results from the fact that Gdynia had visits of larger cruisers in last years than it was in the previous period. The location of the port in Gdynia and the lack of significant investments in port infrastructure for maritime tourism lead to the stabilization of tourist traffic at the present level.