Author: AIVP
On sale date: Friday, 09 June 2006
Type of document: Report
Type of activity: General Assembly
Event: The IACP Days and General Meeting - Rijeka, june 2006
Location: Europe : Croatia : Rijeka
Language: English, French, Spanish

On the 8th and 9th June last, the big Croatian port city of Rijeka hosted the Annual General Meeting as well as an IACP Days seminar on the theme "Port, City, Tourism…a winning triptych". For this occasion, the city and port of Rijeka, joint hosts of the event, were able to display their ambitious project called "Rijeka Gateway Project" associating competitive port development and the redevelopment of a huge urban waterfront. Nearly a hundred participants, coming from 19 European, African and South American countries had travelled to Croatia to attend the event.

Following the presentation of the Report of Activities and of the 2005 Statement of Accounts, the IACP members were invited to vote the Association's project of activities and budget for 2006. Then, under the authority of Mr Fernando Revuelta Belandia, Institutional Relations Manager of the Port of Bilbao, chairing this General Meeting in the absence of the IACP Chairman and Mayor of Bilbao, Mr Iñaki Azkuna, unable to attend, the election of new administrators of the Association was held. Amongst the newly elected persons who now hold one of the 33 seats on the Board are:

• In the "Port Authorities" college, the Port of Valencia (Spain) represented by their General Manager, Mr Ramon Gomez Ferrer, as well as the Portb of Reykjavik (Iceland) represented by Mr. Arni Thor Sigurdsson, their Chairman.


• And in the "Professionals" college, Mr Franck Pigna of the Aegir Property Groups (Miami-USA).

The election of Mr Humberto de Carvalho, Chairman of the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon (Portugal) to the post of Secretary of IACP as well as that of Mr Juan Carlos Retamero, Chairman of the Port of Rosario (Argentina) as Vice President in charge relations with South America should be noted.

The IACP Days seminar dedicated to the theme of tourist development in port cities enabled participants to get up to date on the recent tourist opportunities that port cities are experiencing today. Specialists and presentations of examples stimulated the debate. Confronted with a world tourist demand in search of authenticity, port cities can successfully play on the originality of their maritime or river landscapes but also on their modernity as emblematic places of international trade. Developing a tourist offer in the port city thus means knowing how to "stage present" not only the heritage elements but also the port and maritime atmosphere itself. In this respect, the tourist will be invited to discover the port city firstly on foot and only in a second stage by the various cultural and recreational installations than may be offered to them. Contemporary quality architecture is naturally an additional tourist advantage, sometimes decisive, that the local stakeholders know how to play on (Bremerhaven, Le Havre, Bilbao…). The investments granted are then on a level with the challenge in the construction of a tourist offer frequently entirely to be invented. It must be noted that the constraints in terms of security, including on the port terminals, are essential parameters to be taken into account, but that solutions can be implemented to get over them (Bremerhaven).

The cruise industry is very often at the centre of projects in the construction of a tourist offer. However, the attention of the participants was drawn to the growing size of ships. On the one hand the influx of cruise passengers in the city of the call is not without generating numerous problems for their reception and for their temporary cohabitation with a frequently little adapted urban tissue, and on the other hand, current thinking is turned towards strategies aiming to keep the tourists captives on board the vessel. The tourist spin-off for the city and the region must thus be envisaged prudently and in the context of negotiations with the cruise operators.

The necessity was also underlined for all the stakeholders of the port city who engage in the international tourism field to acquire the necessary professional culture. For numerous industrial port cities, this is frequently a question of accomplishing a real cultural revolution. Raising the awareness of all the local stakeholders and training are necessary to reach a level of quality in the international welcome that will, in the long term, establish the reputation of the new destination.

Finally, if city – port dialogue is indispensable for the construction of a "win-win" tourist offer for all the local stakeholders, the search for cooperation with other port cities is essential in the construction of a regional tourist offer for the cruise industry. Following the example of the port cities of the Baltic Sea, the construction of an overall and coherent regional offer enables a more balanced negotiation with the global tourist operators and a better management of the regional territory.

An example to be followed by commercial cargo ports confronted with more and more difficult negotiations with the global operators of world trade ?

View selected pictures : click here