Three coaches stop at the River Harmony, a river cruise boat moored in the Grootdok in Ghent. American tourists shuffle from the buses onto the ship for lunch, after a short guided visit to the city center of Ghent in the morning. According to the tour operator’s program, a free walk in the city follows after lunch. After dinner, the anchor is weighed and the ship sails towards Antwerp. Afterwards it goes to the Netherlands, from where the boat came for the twelve-day trip “Holland & Belgium in Springtime”.
The number of river cruises visiting Ghent has increased from 100 per year two decades ago to 300 last year. These cruise ships all dock in the Grootdok, the harbor dock closest to the city center. At times, up to ten ships would moor at the same time, while the quays are actually intended for inland shipping. In addition, the moored ships – sailing luxury hotels with up to 200 guests – run their diesel engines to provide electricity on the ship.
Engines off
The port company North Sea Port and the Ghent city council want to manage all this better. On Monday, the demolition of an old wooden jetty started to make way for a new jetty especially for river cruises. It will be 85 meters long and six meters wide. It will be equipped with shore power (an electrical outlet for ships), which river cruisers are required to use. They are therefore no longer allowed to run their polluting diesel engines.
“The new quay can accommodate four boats. That is also the maximum number of river cruises that we will allow per day,” says Daan Schalk, port manager at North Sea Port. It is up to the shipping companies to reserve their places in time. Due to this restriction, only about 300 cruise ships will be allowed to dock per year. The river cruise season traditionally starts in mid-March and runs until mid-October. The new quay costs 2.5 million euros. A ship that docks generates about 1,000 euros in income per day for the city and the port.
The port decided in consultation with the city council to no longer receive sea cruises. “Four to seven came to Ghent every year. From 2030, Europe must also provide shore power for sea cruises. The electricity consumption of a seagoing vessel is many times that of a river cruise ship, which would require enormous investments in a heavy shore power installation that would not yield enough returns. Moreover, you have to reserve part of the port for too few sea cruises.” According to Schalk, a first project for shore power for sea-going cargo ships will be announced in the port of Ghent in the coming weeks.
Unlivable
The restriction on the number of cruise ships comes at a time when more and more cities are complaining about the excessive growth of tourism. As a result, cities such as Amsterdam, Barcelona or Venice are in danger of becoming unliveable. A symbol of this unbridled growth are the increasingly larger ocean cruise boats, which can best be described as large floating holiday cities. The largest of them, the Icon of the Seas, can accommodate as many as 7,600 passengers and 2,350 crew members. When such a ship visits a historic city, the city center is flooded with tourists. At the same time, the local tourism industry earns little from it, as passengers sleep and eat on board.
Moreover, cruise tourism is on the rise with growth of more than 10 percent per year, says the cruise line sector organization. River cruises – with ships that are also becoming increasingly luxurious – are growing even faster than sea cruises. It will be difficult for the sector to navigate between rising demand and cities that are becoming increasingly strict.
According to the Ghent alderman of Port Sofie Bracke (Open VLD), the city still receives requests from American shipping companies to allow sea cruises. Alderman for Tourism Bram Van Braeckevelt (Green) says that the people of Ghent are concerned that tourism is becoming too massive. He wants to intervene before things get out of hand.
A cruise ship in Antwerp (archive image). — © Jan Van der Perre
Antwerp, on the other hand, does not want any restrictions. “Antwerp is a city where people are still welcome,” sneers Koen Kennis, alderman for Tourism (N-VA), about the policy in Ghent. “We do not impose limits on the number of cruises. The city can handle that. These cruises create jobs and income. This is also a limited group, compared to the total number of tourists visiting the city. Moreover, the center of Antwerp is twice as large as that of Ghent.”
Antwerp already has three places on the Eilandje where river cruises can moor and use shore power. The situation is different for sea cruises. “We receive thirty to forty sea cruises a year. Not those very large cruise ships, because they cannot enter here. This concerns ships with a maximum of 2,000 passengers on board.” There will be no investment in shore power. “That would cost too much money, because you would have to install a high-voltage cabin at the cruise terminal. Due to the limited number of ships, this cannot be made profitable.” Kennis especially hopes that the shipping companies will make their ships more sustainable, so that an expensive shore power installation is not necessary.
In the winter
Such an installation will be built in Zeebrugge. “It costs 8 million euros and will be ready in 2026. We also receive European and Flemish subsidies,” says Bruges mayor Dirk De fauw (CD&V). With 500,000 passengers and 180 boats per year, Zeebrugge is the largest cruise port in Belgium and the only one that can receive the largest ships.
“There may be a maximum of two ships, preferably not during the weekend and not during the high season. Most ships come in the winter months, because in the summer the cruise ships sail in the Mediterranean.” Due to the war in Ukraine, there are also more ships calling at Zeebrugge, because there is much less sailing on the Baltic Sea. Saint Petersburg has been deleted as a destination.
De fauw says that the city center of Bruges feels like there is a cruise ship in Zeebrugge, with sometimes too large groups of tourists that hinder ordinary Bruges residents, for example because they are on the cycle path. “On the other hand, there are also many businesses that benefit from it, from the cheese shop to even the shoe shop that sells significantly more shoes at such a time.”
