Cork loses its top berth for cruises

Cork has lost its status as the most popular destination for overseas tourists visiting Ireland on cruise ships after a 12.4% drop in the number of passengers last year.

New figures show 89,686 passengers were on board liners which stopped at either the cruise ship terminal in Cobh or the deepwater berth in Ringaskiddy in 2016 – down from 102,217 the previous year.

The decrease in visits to Cork from cruise ship passengers last year is unexpected as in overall figures 2016 was a record year for Irish tourism with the number of overseas visitors up 8.8% to more than 8.7 million. The total number of cruise ships stopping in Cork remained the same as in 2015, at 57 vessels.