Estonia, Good for Business, Investments, Port, Tourism, Transport

The new quay is 421 metres long, 20 metres wide and guaranteed water depth is 11 metres.

With the new quay, the Port of Tallinn will be able to moor cruise ships up to 340 metres in length, up to 42 metres in width, and with the draft of up to nine metres. The first vessel to moor at the new cruise ship quay was the 330-metre long Royal Princess with over 3,000 passengers on board.

It is estimated that a cruise tourist leaves an average of 56.7 euros in Tallinn, buying goods and services, plus guide's fees and transport.

“For the Port of Tallinn, the construction of the new quay was the largest single investment last year,” said Alan Kiil, the Board Member of AS Tallinna Sadam. “This investment will, on the one hand, satisfy the growing demand for Tallinn as a tourist destination and, on the other hand, help us meet the needs of cruise operators that want to use larger and larger vessels.”

"We expect six cruise ships in our port on two days, which means that if we didn’t have the quay now, we would most likely have had to turn down someone – naturally the biggest ships since this is the quay that is capable of receiving the biggest ships."

The opening of the quay was marked with the mooring of the Royal Princess, the largest cruise vessel to have ever visited Estonia so far.

According to Urve Palo, the Minister of Economic Affairs and Communications, there is still potential for the increase in the numbers of cruise tourists on the Baltic Sea resulting from the joint marketing of Tallinn and other cruise destinations of the Baltic Sea, which will obviously affect the economy of the tourist destinations, informed BC the port of Tallinn.

“It is estimated that a cruise tourist leaves an average of 56.7 euros in Tallinn, buying goods and services,” minister Palo noted. “Even at the present half a million of cruise tourists per year that amounts to over 30 million euros injected into local economy, in addition to such indirect effects as the jobs created in tourism agencies and catering facilities and the taxes received from these.”

The construction of the new quay next to the existing cruise ships quay in the Old City harbour started in May 2013. The total length of the quay built by the Estonian branch of BMGS is 421 metres; it is 20 metres wide, and the guaranteed depth at the quay wall is 11 metres. The cruise ship quay has also been outfitted with electricity supply, outdoor lighting, communications equipment and pipelines for supplying ships with utility water and removing waste water.

The volume of bottom dredging amounted to a total of 12,300 cubic metres, and over 200 steel piles 30–46 metres in length were installed in the seabed in the course of the construction. The total amount of concrete cast for the construction purposes was 6,600 cubic metres.

Tallinn is to welcome around 300 vessels bringing approximately 470,000 cruise tourists during this cruise season. The summer cruise season lasts until 26 September, but cruise tourists are expected to visit Tallinn in October and December as well.