On June 26-27, 2014 the VI International Forum “Saint-Petersburg – the Sea Capital of Russia. Sea Tourism” took place in Saint-Petersburg. The forum is aimed at open exchange information between the government and society concerning creation and improvement of state policy in the field of water tourism.

In the framework of the Forum plenary meetings FSUE “Rosmorport” Deputy General Director Oksana Gubina spoke on the topic “Development of the Cruise Shipping Infrastructure in Russian Seaports”, presenting a brief summary of the FSUE “Rosmorport” activities to construct new and develop the existing port infrastructure facilities in the sphere of sea cruise shipping and the future plans of the enterprise, to the Forum participants.

In her speech Oksana Gubina made a special emphasis on the prospects for development of sea cruise tourism in the Black Sea, where the enterprise had successfully implemented the federal project for creation of an international sea and cruise shipping center on the basis of Sochi Seaport. During the works the client constructor of which was FSUE “Rosmorport” 7 marine terminals designed for mooring and handling leisure boats and marine passenger ships of the local lines, with the flow capacity of 203 thousand passengers, and up to 102 thousand passengers in one navigation. In Sochi Seaport 6 berths were constructed and 12 were reconstructed; with the total length of the berth wall of more than 2.8 kilometres. Necessary port, engineer and administrative infrastructure facilities were created enabling the seaport to receive two 300-metre cruise liners and one sea ferry up to 170 metres in length at a time. The implementation of the project by the enterprise allowed to offer high-quality services to the guests of the 2014 Olympics and create a solid foundation for the increase of the passenger flow into the resort town of Sochi by existing directions and the new directions, which will connect Sochi with the towns at the Mediterranean and the Black Sea basins.

Oksana Gubina also introduced the prospects of the port infrastructure development in the Big Port of Saint-Petersburg. In order to support the initiative of the Government of Saint-Petersburg to promote the city as a Russian center for cruise tourism on the international market, FSUE “Rosmorport” decided to reconstruct the passenger terminals on the English Quay and the Lieutenant Schmidt’s Quay in order to create modern infrastructure facilities, which will make the city more attractive for tourists.

The Deputy General Director stressed, that there was a high level of demand for cruise shipping services not only in the European part of Russia, but also in the Far East. Thus, following the trilateral agreement on cooperation between the Vladivostok City Administration, LLC Inflot Worldwide Rus and FSUE “Rosmorport”, which had been signed recently, the enterprise had also prepared a number of projects for the development of the Vladivostok Seaport infrastructure facilities to enable receipt of ocean liners. Besides, there is also a large potential for development of cruise shipping in the arctic region for the tourists to visit both well-known historical places of interests and the newly created national parks, such as the Russian Arctica national park.

In the end of her speech Oksana Gubina underlined, that “concerning the existing prospects, there is a need for a closer cooperation of tourist companies, sea shipping companies and FSUE “Rosmorport” in the development of the homeland port infrastructure, in order to increase the efficiency and the quality of sea cruise shipping services, the demand for which is increasing”.