At Seatrade Cruise Shipping Miami 2010, the international exhibition and conference for the cruise industry, Costa Cruises position as Italy’s largest tourism group and Europe’s number one cruise company was confirmed.

In 2009, a year marked by a severe economic crisis that significantly reduced expenditure by holidaymakers, approximately 1.3 million guests around the world cruised with Costa, an 8% increase on the previous year, in line with the increased offer.

 

The rise is in line with Costa Cruises expansion which continued with the recent arrival of Costa Deliziosa (www.costadeliziosa.com - 92,600 gross tonnage and 2,826 total Guests) which, along with her sister ship Costa Luminosa, is the company’s most exclusive and innovative ship. Costa Deliziosa, built at the Marghera shipyard by Fincantieri, was named in Dubai on 23 February and is the first ship inaugurated in an Arabic country.

 

Costa Deliziosa is the third ship delivered by Fincantieri to the Italian Company in less than nine months (April 2009 - January 2010), and is part of a 2.4 billion euro fleet expansion program with five new liners entering service between 2009 and 2012. Costa Luminosa and Costa Pacifica – christened together at a Guinness World Record event on 5 June 2009 – and Costa Deliziosa will be followed by the sister ships Costa Favolosa due for delivery in summer 2011 and Costa Fascinosa, which will make her debut in spring 2012. All five ships are Italian builds commissioned from Fincantieri and their introduction will lead to a 50% increase in capacity for the Costa fleet, which will be 16-strong with accommodation for 45,000 total guests by 2012.

 

Testimony to the company’s reputation for innovation, and reflective of its pioneering spirit, Costa Cruises’ brand new 2011 brochure – available soon at leading travel agencies – features the return of the historic “round-the-world cruise”, on Costa Deliziosa. This 100-day trip of a lifetime can be broken down into three stand-alone segments (Savona-Los Angeles; Los Angeles-Singapore; Singapore-Savona) providing an authentic travel experience and the opportunity to follow in the wake of the world voyages of yesteryear, while enjoying world-class amenities. Other interesting offers in the brochure include seven-day winter cruises in the Red Sea with Costa Marina and Costa Allegra, along with the arrival of Costa Favolosa, currently under construction at the Fincantieri shipyards in Marghera.

 

Costa Cruises’ commitment to environmental protection has also been confirmed as Costa Deliziosa, along with her sister ship Costa Luminosa, will be the first ship in Italy, and one of the few in the world, designed for “cold ironing”. Employing this system, ships berthed at the quayside can receive power from shore without having to keep their engines running to operate the onboard generators, helping to reduce the environmental impact of vessels even while berthed in port. Other design features of Costa Deliziosa help reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions to avoid wasting electricity and water.

 

Costa Cruises’ interest in protecting the marine environment is also demonstrated by its renewed partnership with the WWF, aiming of actively sustaining and creating a network of protected marine areas in the Mediterranean in addition to the project initiated in 2005 with the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission to monitor climatic changes in the Mediterranean.

 

The commitment to safeguarding the environment and maintaining the company’s corporate social responsibility is reflected in Costa Cruises’ Sustainability Report (consultable online at www.costacruise.com), a voluntary form of reporting designed to provide comprehensive and transparent information on the effects of corporate activity on the environment and the community. The highlights in terms of environmental performance in 2008 were a 5% reduction in fuel consumption per mile sailed, a 5% reduction in consumption of potable water per person, 2,126 m3 of glass and aluminum recycled.

 

The company has also received numerous environment-related awards and accolades around the globe. The latest are the “U Green Award 2009/10”, received on 1 March from “U Magazine”, the most important travel magazine in Hong Kong, and the “Environmental achievement award 2009” from the Chamber of Shipping of America, assigned to seven ships in the fleet for their excellence in complying with environmental standards.