A very successful two day “Seatrade” conference with the theme “Winter Cruising in the Mediterranean” was held at the Mediterranean Conference Centre. Over 170 top management officials from all the world’s leading cruise line companies attended and all had words of praise for the organisation and for Malta in particular. Among those present was a high ranking delegation from MSC Cruises which included the company’s managing director Domenico Pellegrino who was also one of the speakers at the Conference. He was accompanied by Captain Luigi Pastena who is in charge of Ports and Cruise liner itineraries as well as Nicola Cesaro who is responsible for MSC passenger shore excursions and cruise and stay clients.
Whilst in Malta, the MSC Crociere delegation also held very fruitful talks with their local representative Messrs. Simon Coppini and Thomas Cauchi who are respectively the Port agent and Operations Manager of J. Ripard and Sons Ltd. who look after the MSC ships when in Grand Harbour as well as with Mr Norman Hamilton, Chairman and Managing Director of Hamilton Travel Co. Ltd. who have been MSC Crociere’s Malta General Sales Agents since 1996, responsible for the ships’ passengers shore excursions, hotel accommodation and transfers for cruise and stay clients as well as booking any Maltese and Gozitans who would like to take a cruise on any one of MSC’s existing eight liners. Two brand new ships will be joining the fleet during 2008 when the 92,000 tonnes “Poesia” is launched in Dover next April and the giant 135,000 tonnes “Fantasia” which will be inaugurated at Naples in November, thus expanding the fleet to 10.
Currently the MSC top management is in negotiations with Hamilton Travel Co. Ltd. as well as VISET regarding increasing the frequency of their Cruise liners visiting Malta as a port of call during 2009 and 2010.
MSC Cruises will be bringing to Malta around 100,000 passengers during 2008 with weekly back to back calls of the “MSC Sinfonia” and “MSC Rhapsody” between April and November together with winter calls of the ships “MSC Musica”, “MSC Opera” and “MSC Poesia”.