30/06/2008
COSTA CRUISES: 1 MILLION CUSTOMERS HAVE ALREADY BOOKED A VACATION IN 2008 ON THE 12 SHIPS IN THE FLEET
Another boom year for the Italian Company; already 1 million Guest bookings for the Italian fleet in 2008, not only repeating the feat of 2007, but bettering it by 5 whole weeks.
Costa Cruises first set the historic European record of 1 million customers for the year on July 17, 2007. The Genoa-based Company expects to end 2008 with 6% more total Guests than last year, in line with its increased capacity. Some 1.5 million Guests a year are forecast by 2010.
Genoa - June 30, 2008 - 2008 is turning into another boom year for Costa Cruises. The Italian Company, which is the most popular cruise line in Italy and across Europe, has topped the record figure of 1 million customer bookings for the year's cruises some 5 weeks earlier than in 2007.
The repetition of this historic achievement occurred on June 10, 2008, exactly 37 days earlier than in 2007 when, on July 17, Costa clocked up its one millionth Guest for that year - a first not only for the Company, which had never before in its 60-year history carried so many passengers in a 12-month period, but also for the European cruise industry as a whole.
"Thanks to the healthy trend in our global sales, reflecting the increasing popularity of our product," commented Costa Crociere S.p.A. Group Chairman & CEO Pier Luigi Foschi, "we have done even better than last year, when we celebrated the record of 1 million customers, set in mid-July, for the first time in Europe. This is a truly excellent peformance, which consolidates and confirms our position as Europe's number one cruise line and rewards the efforts of the 15,000-plus people who work in Costa Cruises".
Costa Cruises expects to end 2008 with an increase in total Guests of 6% compared to the 1,100,000 who went on a Costa cruise in 2007, this rise being in line with the extra capacity offered this year (and generated by the year-long availability of the flagship Costa Serena, which entered service in May 2007).
The Company's next objective is to reach 1.5 million total Guests in 2010, which works out to growth in excess of 35% in just 3 years. This prestigious new goal is supported by a major fleet expansion program - the biggest in the world at present - comprising 5 new ships due for delivery by 2012, all built in Italy by Fincantieri and entailing a total investment worth 2.4 billion euros. The addition of these new ships will lead to a 50% increase in the capacity of the fleet, which will be 17-strong by 2012 with berths for 46,400 Guests.
This expansion is also readily mirrored in the exclusive new itineraries introduced by Costa Cruises, the first operator in the world to market cruises in the Far East with departures from China, in the Arabian Gulf with departures from Dubai and in the Indian Ocean with departures from Mauritius.