Port of Tallinn passenger numbers hit record high for 10th consecutive year

"Port of Tallinn exceeded the one million passengers margin in 1992, the first time the ports serviced more than five million passengers was in 1998, the number fluctuated between five to seven million passengers over the course of the next nine years, and since 2008, each following year has been record-breaking in terms of passenger numbers. It is good to look at these kinds of results and we will continue to work in the future in the name of growing passenger numbers," Vihman said, adding that the number of cruise passengers who visited Tallinn last year was also at a record high. "Cruise ships visited Tallinn on 311 occasions and brought 564,280 cruise tourists to visit the city. Cruise ships visited the port of Saaremaa on five occasions with 1,513 tourists on board. Cruise tourist numbers were up 19.2% compared to 2016," he said.

The most popular ferry route last year was still the Tallinn-Helsinki route, with altogether 8.83 million passengers or 83% of all passengers travelling on that route. The number of passengers travelling on the Tallinn-Helsinki route was 3.7% higher than in the same period the year before.

The number of passengers on the Tallinn-Stockholm route grew 4.8% on year, for the first time exceeding the one million margin with 1,030,029 passengers. Ten% of all passengers of the ports travelled on the Swedish route while, one% or 83,400 people travelled on the Russian route.

The most popular vessel in 2017 was Tallink's new Megastar operating on the Tallinn-Helsinki route, on board of which travelled altogether 1,997,312 passengers, followed by Viking Line's Viking XPRS operating on the Tallinn-Helsinki route with 1,751,820 passengers serviced in 2017. The third most popular vessel was Tallink's Star, which also operates on the Tallinn-Helsinki route and carried altogether 1,668,454 passengers last year.

Tallink's share of the annual passenger numbers was 57%, followed by Viking Line with 22%, Eckero Line with 14% and Moby SPL with 1%.

The number of passenger ferry visits totaled 6,039 in 2017.

(Source: http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/good_for_business/?doc=136545)