The idea of creating an organization to promote cruises in Northern Europe arose during the Seatrade Cruise Shipping trade show in Miami in 1990. At that time, very few companies ventured to sail in that area.
The organization was formally established in Copenhagen in December 1991 with 21 members.
It wasn't until 1993 that Costa Cruises visited the area for the first time, with the Daphne and the Enrico Costa, and the success of the first season led to the Costa Allegra being positioned there instead of the Daphne the following year.
In those years, North American cruise companies hadn't even considered that there was a potential market of 300 million consumers in Europe who might enjoy cruises, but little by little they began to look at the region
At the General Assembly in Cádiz in 1999, Patrick Ryan of Royal Caribbean International spoke of nine new ships in the summer of 2002, with seven (RCI and Celebrity) to be deployed in Europe in 2003, replacing the three that were in service at that time. Cruise Europe already had 69 members.
Cruise Europe celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2006 with a "happy hour" at its Seatrade Miami stand, having grown its membership to 93.
In 2008, 7.86 million passengers visited the region on 6,333 stopovers, compared to 6.44 million and 5,684 stopovers the previous year, a giant leap.
At the General Assembly in Le Havre in 2013, cruise analyst Peter Wild stated that the European source market had reached 6.2 million passengers, out of a global total of 20.6 million in 2012. Captain Luigi Pastena, head of port operations for MSC Cruises, commented that his company had made 467 calls at European ports the previous year with 1.4 million passengers, estimating that total port costs would have been around €18.5 million, of which 63% would be port fees.
The current president, Michael McCarthy, looks to the future: “Since being elected president in 2012, I have had the honor of serving with the most dedicated managing directors, port executives on the board, and in the ports. We will continue to fulfill the organization’s original vision of promoting Europe as a world-leading, sustainable cruise region.”.
