«Princess Anastasia» connects Saint Petersburg, Stockholm and Tallinn
In the end of March St. Peter Line Company in cooperation with Saint Petersburg government opened new route from Saint Petersburg to Tallinn via Stockholm. This will allow to the city to attract additional 400 thousand tourists in 2011.
According to the President of St. Peter Line Company Mr. Igor Gloukhov Saint Petersburg is the region’s leader in terms of cruises, but falls behind in terms of ferry lines. Now when the second ferry route has been opened (first one to Helsinki was launched one year ago) and some others are soon to come, the city might someday become one of the largest ferry hubs.
During 2010 summer season average load of the Princess Maria ferry was exceeding 70%. Apart from regular services some special charters en-route from Saint Petersburg to Helsinki, Stockholm and Tallinn were organized for the Russian market. These charters had 100% occupancy. First of all St. Peter Lines’ success is connected with high quality service along with the innovative approach that implies not just ordinary ferry transportation but also cruise line concept that its predecessors definitely lacked. European quality, Russian hospitality, 72-hour visa-free stay in Russia for foreign ferry and cruise passengers led to some sort of a revolution and allowed to set up steady passenger flow from both Russian and Finnish sides.
Vice-Governor of Stockholm Region Ms. Catharina Chempe during the press-conference onboard the vessel noted that unfortunately Sweden couldn’t adopt the same scheme of visa-free regime for Russian citizens as this is up to the entire Schengen zone. However the Swedish government decided to simplify and speed up visa application procedure for the Russians.
According to the schedule one-way travel takes 25 hours. The ferry departs from Saint Petersburg Thursday evening, on Friday evening it reaches Stockholm where tourists spend the day and then leave for Tallinn. There they spend another half a day and on Monday morning come back to Saint Petersburg. The ticket for the whole trip costs €75; a family of three will have to pay around €360.
Princess Anastasia is a modern passenger ferryboat that can total of carry 2,353 people. It features 834 cabins of different comfort and price classes. The car deck can take 580 vehicles. In the nearest future Princess Anastasia will operate 2 services a week. Weekend cruises include a stopover in Tallinn on the way back from Stockholm. The ship is very convenient, it offers comfortable cabins, SPA-center, restaurants, show halls, bars and duty-free shops.
Commenting on the event Vice-President of Russian Union of Travel Industry Mr. Sergey Korneev said that Swedish tourism resources have a great potential for the Russian market in general and for Saint Petersburg in particular. Direct connection opens new opportunities for tourism development between Russia, Sweden and Estonia as well as within the entire Baltic region. “The possibility of cooperation between the ferry line management and major federal bus-tour operators was discussed during recent seating of RUTI’s Bus Tourism Commission in Moscow. It kindled market’s great interest and operators are ready to use this ferry service as it simplifies organization of very popular itineraries from Russia to Norway. Taking into consideration that each tour operator works with 500-600 agencies all over the country, it is not hard to see the extent of opening opportunities. And since the trips to Scandinavia via Saint Petersburg are quite an attractive product we can expect significant increase of domestic tourist arrivals. Thanks to the new ferry line we are counting on Swedish tourists as well. Travel trade experts find the favours of Russian and Swedish tourists to be very similar; both prefer to spend vacations in Southern countries, but still like to visit neighboring countries. However mutual tourist flows were not significant because there was no convenient mode of travel between Saint Petersburg and Stockholm. Now the situation is different and not only do we expect Swedish tourists, but also visitors from other regions: Europe, Sothern Asia and USA. These tourists would definitely be interested in such a product that combines most attractive cities of the Baltic region. As for Europe, we have already started to receive requests for our new itinerary from major German tour operators.” – said Sergey Korneev.