The tender of the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSH) for the exploitation of the port of Lavrio changes the landscape in the port market of Greece and the entire Mediterranean, as major cruise companies have already expressed their interest in order to develop the dynamics of the sector.
At the moment, the port of Piraeus, with 760 cruise ship arrivals in 2023 and 1,500,000 passengers, remains the leader in the Greek market.
The port of Lavrio, with revenues of 6.5 million euros in 2023 compared to 6.3 million euros in 2022, becomes particularly attractive for many companies, since it is located very close to the Athens International Airport “El. Venizelos”, but also in popular tourist destinations such as the Cyclades.
According to data available to “Naftemporiki”, passenger and vehicle traffic for coastal shipping vessels from the port of Lavrio shows an increasing trend from 2019 onwards, with a slight decline in 2020 and 2021, during the restrictive measures against the coronavirus pandemic.
In particular, in 2019 a total of 238,370 passengers and 69,520 vehicles departed from this port for the Cyclades and North Aegean.
In 2020 these figures amounted to 187,454 passengers and 61,550 vehicles, in 2021 to 228,363 passengers and 75,896 vehicles, in 2022 to 301,255 passengers and 94,934 vehicles and in 2023 to 318,142 passengers and 100,584 vehicles.
The call for expression of interest for the tender concerns the acquisition of a majority percentage (at least 50% plus one share) of the share capital of the Lavrio Port Authority.
According to information from “Naftemporiki”, the cruise companies MSC Cruises and Carnival, as well as large companies associated with the operation of pleasure boats, have already expressed interest in this port.
