Koper - Around 65 cruise ships are expected to bring 80,000 passengers to the port of Koper this year, Luka Koper, the company operating the sea port, has announced, based on current bookings. The season will open on 27 March when Viking Sky is expected to sail into the Slovenian sole port.

Compared to pre-Covid 2019, a major fall in cruise ships and passengers has been recorded as ships cannot fill all the beds due to coronavirus restrictions.

Given the current bookings, 10% fewer cruise ships and 30% fewer passengers are to arrive at the port compared to 2019, Luka Koper has told the STA.

The season is expected to close in the second half of December with the arrival of the prestigious super-yacht Emerald Azzurra.

This season's special feature will be the arrival of all four ships of company Azamara Cruises on the same day - 8 October.

A 200-metre super-yacht of Ritz Carlton will anchor in the port twice, in July and September, as the hotel operator has also ventured into the cruise industry.

The majority of the cruise ships will be 230 to 260 metres long, while two - Mein Schiff 5 and Celebrity Constellation - are almost 300 metres long.

Luka Koper has said that "everything is subject to the course of the novel coronavirus epidemic", yet it nevertheless continues planning a passenger terminal.

First cruise ships arrived in Koper in the early 2000s. In 2005, 18 ships stopped by, while 60 to 80 ships with some 100,000 passengers visited it in recent years.