Italia is the world’s second-largest country in terms of cruise traffic
In 2025, 100 million passengers passed through Italian ports. Of these, 15 million were cruise passengers: the US was ahead of us and Spain came third
Key points
In 2025, Italia ranked as the second-largest country in the world in terms of cruise traffic. Also in that year, passenger movements at Italian ports totalled 100 million, including ferries, cruise ships and pleasure craft. These figures emerge from the first edition of the Report on Maritime Tourism in Italia, produced by Risposte Turismo, a research and consultancy firm founded and chaired by Francesco di Cesare, which has been operating for 25 years. As regards cruises alone, with approximately 15 million passengers handled (embarkations, disembarkations and transits), recorded in 2025 – accounting for 35 per cent of total traffic in the Mediterranean basin (a new all-time record, representing a 3.6 per cent increase on 2024) – Italy, the report states, takes second place on the global podium, behind the US; Spain comes third.
Estimates produced by Risposte Turismo indicate that further growth is expected by the end of 2026, when the number of passengers passing through Italian cruise ports is forecast to exceed 15.3 million (+3.9% on 2025) and the number of ship calls is expected to approach 6,000 (+4.8% on 2025).
The market is changing
The analysis also highlights a number of structural changes in the market: ‘Whilst remaining heavily concentrated along the Tyrrhenian coast – particularly thanks to the results achieved in 2025 by the country’s top three cruise ports (Civitavecchia with 3.56 million, Naples with 1.85 million and Genoa with 1.63 million), cruise traffic – the study states – is showing the first signs of a redistribution across regions and seasons. In 2025, the islands as a whole recorded the highest growth, whilst the shoulder season months (March–May and October) saw the most significant increase compared with 2024, highlighting the initial effects of seasonal adjustment processes.”
The report also devotes a section to an in-depth analysis of maritime transport by ferry, hydrofoil and catamaran – a sector which, until now, has only been analysed to a limited extent due to the fragmentation of the available sources. To overcome this limitation, Risposte Turismo has combined the official data from Assoporti – relating to the quays managed by the Port System Authorities – with a map of over 60 ports and landing stages that handle passenger traffic but do not fall within the remit of the Port System Authorities.
According to the study, this analysis shows that ‘in 2025, at least 74.3 million passengers were handled by short- and long-haul transport (+2.1% on 2024): 60.5 million recorded by Assoporti’, through the Port System Management Authorities (Adsps), ‘and over 13.8 million recorded by Risposte Turismo from 34 ports which, out of the approximately 60 mapped nationwide, collaborated on this first edition of the report. Although not exhaustive at national level, this figure currently represents the most comprehensive snapshot available of the sector’. It is, however, ‘a conservative estimate, as some local ports do not yet have complete statistical data’.
