There are 13 more cruise ships scheduled to call into Apia this year with two already having visited Samoa from the start of the new year.

This is good news for the country as revenue from cruise tourism earnings are forecast to increase this year.

The vessels Celebrity Eclipse and the Arcadia have already made ports of call at Apia in January and at the beginning of the month.

According to the Samoa Bureau of Statistics, cruise ship arrivals accounted for 1,992 of the 22,905 total visitor arrivals in December last year. The two ships that have come since the start of the year had more than 1,000 passenger capacity respectively.

The Samoa Tourism Authority (S.T.A.) has released the Tourism Sector Plan 2022-2027 and this includes the nation's intended pathway to improve the tourism industry.
The tourism sector currently accounts for 25 per cent of Gross Domestic Product and generating a third of the country’s total foreign reserve. Tourist arrivals by cruise average about 13,427 people a year from 2013 to 2019.

Meanwhile, the cruise ship Amadea will call in to the Apia harbor on Tuesday morning making it only the third ship to visit Samoa this year. It carries 624 passengers and 280 crew members.