Cruise tourism to Norway breaks all records. For the first time last year, there were more day-visiting cruise tourists in Norwegian ports than there are residents of Norway, writes Dagens Næringsliv.
According to figures from the Norwegian Coastal Administration, there were 6.1 million daily visits from cruise tourists to Norwegian tourist destinations last year. This is an increase of 1.9 million daily visitors from 2022 – which was also a record year. This year, even more are expected.
It’s time to pull the handbrake.
It is not the happy news that the industry itself tries to sell it as. Cruise tourism is a climate disaster.
A report from NHO Reiseliv from 2019 shows that tourists who arrive in the country by cruise ship leave behind the least amount of money, but emit the most greenhouse gases of all tourist groups in Norway. In other words: Cruise traffic is the most harmful and least profitable form of tourism we have. Then the conclusion becomes quite simple:
It’s time to pull the handbrake.
The cruise ship Costa Firenze visited Stavanger last year – seen from the residents’ point of view. (Paul Kleiven/NTB)
In 2018, the Storting decided that ship traffic in our world heritage fjords, including the Aurlandsfjord and the Geirangerfjord, should be emission-free from 2026. It will be difficult to implement in practice, all the while the cruise ships are enormously large – and getting bigger and bigger.
“The size of the ships makes it very challenging to find technological solutions to reduce emissions”, emphasizes Hans Jakob Walnum, senior researcher and group leader for climate and environment at Vestlandsforskning, in DN.
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It is not easy for us to see why this is a form of tourism we should want more of.
Many actors in the tourism industry have advocated the introduction of a tourist tax. The first pilot projects may come in the autumn. At the very least, this will mean that cruise tourism leaves more money in this country, but will probably not reduce growth as much as possible.
Even more active policy is needed. The previous, Ap-led city council in Stavanger, one of the most popular cruise tourist destinations, went in to ban cruise calls in the central harbor of Vågen, where the huge cruise ships block all other views when they are in port. In Oslo, which is also on the top ten list of popular destinations, MDG proposed the same thing last autumn.
This is the way to go if we are to reduce cruise traffic. A ban on cruise ships in Norwegian cities will effectively slow down growth, while at the same time it will be noticed internationally. It is necessary if we are to reduce climate emissions.
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Tags: negative development Dagsavisen
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