Cruise ship

A British woman whose cruise holiday went disastrously wrong when she fell overboard in the middle of the night has hailed Croatia's rescue services for saving her life.

Kay Longstaff, 46, tumbled off the back of the Norwegian Star as it was cruising from Venice to Greece along Croatia's long Adriatic Coast.

While Greece is the third most popular cruise tourism destination in the Mediterranean, it is unable to make this translate into financial gains in the way that Spain and Italy do, while certain destinations such as Santorini and Myconos are disproportionately burdened by daily flows of visitors compared to the rest of the country.

Ferries will remain docked on Wednesday due to a 24-hour strike called by the Greek seamen's federation (PNO) protesting a draft ministerial decision that will lift restrictions in cruise shipping.

The high interest in cruise tourism along the Danube River remains. During the new tourist season in Rousse 338 ship visits were declared, last year they were 339, announced the Director of Ruse Supervision Directorate-Ruse to the Maritime Administration Agency Ivan Zhekov.

The ships under the Bulgarian flag "Ariana" and "Elegant Lady" will land a total of 14 times near Russe.

The Turkish government has reorganized the subsidies allocated to group-A tourism operators bringing in tourists on flights and cruise ships, according to two separate cabinet decrees published in the Official Gazette on March 13.

The number of cruise ships visiting Turkey’s ports was 307 last year, down from 538 in 2016, marking a 43-percent decline, data from the Directorate General of Merchant Marine has shown. 

Santorini's limits are being sorely tested by the arrival on the popular southeast Aegean holiday island of thousands of tourists every day, even in the fall.

Cruise tourism looks likely to have some 770,000 fewer visitors this year as estimates by the association of cruise ship owners (EEKFN) point to the number of people choosing a cruise holiday in the Greek seas this year coming to about 4.4 million, against 5.2 million in 2016 (a drop of 15 percent).

Chronic overcrowding in some of Europe's beloved tourism hotspots is fueling an angry backlash, from polite protest to "Go Home" graffiti and even physical intimidation.

Instability in Turkey has caused a drop in cruise ship arrivals in Greece's Aegean islands, according to latest data seen by Kathimerini.

Passenger traffic at the port of Iraklio in Crete saw a 39.4 percent decline in passenger traffic with numbers droping to 82,357 in the first six months of 2017 compared to 135,967 in the same period in 2016.