RIGA - The Baltic Sea is blessed with many fine cities, but in the cruise industry there is only one that matters. In the words of Grant Laversuch, operations director of U.K.-based Saga Shipping, "St. Petersburg is the jewel in any Baltic cruise, and the other ports are built around this."
The numbers bear him out. Of the 35 Russian and Baltic cruises listed on the Web site cruises.affordabletours.com, all visit St. Petersburg. Twenty-six call in Tallinn, nine in Riga and one in Klaipeda. Moreover, while the average stay in Baltic ports is approximately nine hours, most St. Petersburg calls last two to three days.
In 2005, Saga is planning seven Baltic cruises. All of them will stop in Tallinn, and not one will touch elsewhere in the Baltics.
Port statistics strengthen this impression. Ship calls have been stable in Tallinn for the last two years, at just over 230, but bookings for 2005 are already up to 330. Newly appointed chairman of Tallinn's port, Neinar Seli, has set a target of 500 a year by 2010.
Klaipeda, too, is expecting growth, but the predicted total for 2005 is just 57 calls. As for Riga, the number is actually set to fall this year, down 20 percent to 76 calls. As far as the Baltics' ports are concerned, Tallinn is sea-miles ahead of the rest.
Crowded coast
Geography dominates logic in the industry. Tallinn lies directly on the route from the Baltics' entry to St. Petersburg. Klaipeda is a good 80 nautical miles (150 kilometers, or approximately 4 hours steaming) off that route, while Riga, tucked inside a gulf, requires a detour of over 200 nautical miles (400 kilometers, or 10 hours).
According to Laversuch, Saga came to Riga in 2004 but will not be coming back this year. "We are doing shorter cruises this year and do not have time to include Riga, as it requires extra time to navigate 's it actually adds two days, not just one."
Valerijs Barjers, executive director of Riga Passenger Terminal, shrugs this off, saying, "That's geography. New Zealand is even further, and cruises go there." But in an industry where most city visits are counted in hours, and time is therefore critical, there would have to be an extremely good reason not to choose Tallinn over its neighbors.
Competition between the Baltics' ports is only part of the picture. The sea is ringed with historic cities, and where the Baltics are still barely recognized on the European stage, coastal neighbors such as Copenhagen and Stockholm have been world-famous for centuries. (Diena, Latvia's leading daily, recently reported that the president of the European Commission's official representative didn't know the difference between Latvia and Lithuania, while a recent French film referred to "Riga, Estonia")
Even in the "new" Europe, competition is fierce: Poland's Gdynia is fighting for more cruise trade, and so is Germany's Warnemuende, which has successfully marketed itself as the nearest port to Berlin. With St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm and Copen-hagen all classified as "must-sees," the Baltic's other ports are fighting for a very limited number of calls.
Port in a storm
As if Riga's physical location were not enough of a handicap, it has recently been facing bureaucratic problems. Barjers says, "Last year Riga Free Port Authority decided to more than double its quay fees. At the same time, they've decided to phase out rebates to cruise ships, while the passenger terminal is introducing rebates of its own."
Meanwhile, allegations that Riga Port is unfairly favoring its own ferry company on the Riga-Stockholm route have led to a complaint to the European Commis-sion. The Transport Ministry has announced potential links with at least two other ferry lines, and Riga's container terminal has weighed into the fray by expressing its own desire to receive cruise ships. In an industry whose agencies plan their itineraries two years in advance, this public evidence of corporate unpredictability is deeply disturbing.
"Riga Port is weak on quality and reliability. The first thing they have to do is sort out their passenger port and service charges, giving value for money," explains Gundega Zeltina, whose agency, Latvia Tours, works with many cruise operators.
Meanwhile, Latvia's immigration regime currently demands that all visitors hold a visa, meaning that many cruise passengers cannot disembark. (Most other Baltic countries waive the visa requirement for passengers.) Given the port's location - a long detour away from the main Baltic axis - this is the last sort of complication it needs.
Hope for the future
Considering the current growth in Baltic cruise holidays, there are still grounds for optimism.
"Every year we have a large number of repeat customers, so we try to offer them new itineraries each time," says Frances Liddiard, Saga's press officer. This year's backwater could be next year's new attraction, and the ports know it.
"Klaipeda will be represented at the international cruise fair in Miami for the second time this year, and we're actively trying to attract more cruise companies," says Lidija Luksyte, PR manager at Lithuania's State Tourism Department. The port opened a new cruise terminal in 2003, and according to PR manager Trofim Teriochin, continues to market itself as a cruise destination. While not a rival to Tallinn, it certainly looks set to feature on more cruise itineraries in the coming years.
Nor is there any intrinsic reason why Riga should not draw more cruise traffic. Its geographical isolation is a handicap, but against that it can offer diversified attractions and excursions, as well as the status of being the largest city in the Baltics. Its current problems are more bureaucratic than logistic, and solving them is a matter of politics. Diana Bogdanova, PR manager of the Latvian Citizenship and Migration Bureau, says, "This week we made the legal character corrections, and now the draft law [on waiving visa requirements for cruise passengers] is ready for submission in the State councillory."
The port's pricing structure is more of an issue, but Barjers explains, "This year we're ready to negotiate rebates on our services, and agents have started negotiations." If both issues can be resolved, and the port authority can restore its tarnished credibility, there is no reason that cruise traffic should not grow again.
In the final analysis, geographical and navigational factors will always dominate the industry. The Baltic states will never be more than a stop-off on the way to St. Petersburg. Blessed with a favorable location on the main Baltic axis, Tallinn looks set to continue its boom. Klaipeda, focusing on cruise tourism and the Miami international cruise fair, and doing all it can to attract and accommodate cruise operators, is likely to see a growth in business as well. But the story isn't so happy for Riga.
"I was at [the Miami cruise fair] this year, and I didn't see one representative of Latvian shipping agencies, the tourist industry or Riga Free Port there," Barjers says.
If Riga's cruise agencies are content to sit and wait for visitors in this competitive sea, they may have to wait a long time.
