site.btaBurgas Hosts 63rd MedCruise General Assembly

The 63rd General Assembly of the Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports (MedCruise) will be held on October 10-13 at the International Congress Centre in Burgas. According to the Association, the General Assembly attracts over 200 foreign representatives of the cruise business: MedCruise executives, company owners, ports, members of the organization, associate members, those involved in passenger services and others.

Bulgaria was appointed to host the event in 2021, following the MedCruise Assembly in Barcelona. The first official confirmation of this was received at the end of December last year, when the director of Port of Burgas, Diyan Dimov, told BTA that plans were to hold the event in September. 

In mid-May 2023, MedCruise president Figen Ayan, who is also the director of the newly built cruise port Galataport in Istanbul, received a Bulgarian delegation in the Turkish megalopolis. There, she pointed out that the upcoming Assembly in Burgas is a strong international tourism advertisement not only for Burgas, but also for Bulgaria.

Ayan added that the Assembly will provide opportunities to negotiate the visits of cruise ships to Bulgarian sea ports in the next two years. According to her, the visit of the presidents of the biggest cruise companies to Burgas will allow them to ascertain the readiness of the Bulgarian ports to resume the service of cruise ships, after the situation in the Black Sea has calmed down.

In 2018, representatives of the ports on the western shore of the Black Sea - Burgas, Varna, Constanta and Odessa, together with the then MedCruise president, Airam Diaz Pastor, signed an action plan until 2021. The four ports agreed to host on a rotational basis meetings and visits of cruise business stakeholders to present the development of infrastructure, security and organisation in the host ports. However, the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine prevented the organisation of the high-level forums according to the previously approved plan.