Hamburg restructures its cruise ship initiative. Hamburg Cruise Net (HCN) is now brand ambassador and at the same time stakeholder[ds_preview] for the cruise ship competence bundled in the metropolitan region. The organisation was formerly known as Hamburg Cruise Center (HCC) and has now been based on a new structure and strategic focus.
Cruise shipping in Hamburg has gained momentum since 1998. With some 200 calls and a total of 800,000 passengers, a new record is highly expected once again this year.
From the start, HCC was the driving force of this development. In 2014 the Hamburg Senate decided to launch the cruise ship initiative. In this context HCC acted as a so-called cruise office in cooperation with the Hamburg consulting firm Uniconsult. In May 2017, after completion of the project, the initiative was institutionalized in June and HCC was renamed Hamburg Cruise Net.
Within HCN, cruise-related companies cooperate with public-sector actors based on a public-private partnership (PPP). The association is open to all companies, service providers, organizations and private operators working for the industry. As a network of cruise shipping Hamburg Cruise Net represents the interests of its members. This framework aims to improve the conditions for the growth of the cruise ship cluster and to increase the attractiveness of Hamburg internationally.
Chairman Stefan Behn explains: »The original task of the association was to acquire shipowners and support them to make Hamburg known as a cruise location, but after the terminal operator Cruise Gate Hamburg (CGH) was founded, the mission has changed.«
CGH has inherited the tasks of contact and distribution towards shipping companies. Today, the association’s job has changed in favor of location marketing and activities for the industry association. »Networking within the industry is becoming increasingly important,« says Behn.
Strategically, important fields of action were defined for the implementation of these goals. In addition to the focus on networking, these include training and qualification, sustainable cruise shipping and marketing. Working groups of experts are being established for selected fields of action in which not only the expertise offered by municipal organizations but also the competencies of HCN members from the private sector are requested.
In addition to the members of the association, the municipal organizations Cruise Gate Hamburg (CGH) and Hamburg Marketing (HMG) as holding companies with their members Hamburg Invest Wirtschaftsförderungsgesellschaft (HIW), Hamburg Tourism (HHT) and Hamburg Convention Bureau contribute their know-how. Matthias Rieger has been managing director of HCC since 2015 and now holds the same position at HCN at the head of management.
Hamburg provides three modern cruise ship terminals: the Hamburg Cruise Center Altona, the Hamburg Cruise Center HafenCity and the Hamburg Cruise Center Steinwerder. Cruise Gate Hamburg (CGH) is responsible for their operation, the allocation of berths and handling. CGH is the central point of contact for cruise ship owners and also responsible for the acquisition in the course of the reorganization of Hamburg Cruise Net.
According to Stefan Behn, the growing size and number of cruise ships calling port are among the major future challenges. Besides navigational challenges, this makes great logistical demands on passenger handling – more than 3,500 people per ship –, baggage and supply logistics as well as the infrastructure required for arrival and departure, such as airport and rail connections.
»Competition between locations is also growing, so we always have to come up with something new,« he says. One of the most important tasks will be the preservation and promotion of cruise as an accepted form of tourism in Hamburg.
According to Managing Director Rieger, a sign for the growing success of the network was the first ever coordinated plan of marketing activities for 2017. The partners have already agreed on a marketing plan for 2018.
