A very well-known person within the cruise community is Mr Simone Maraschi, the chairman of Cruise Europe and Managing Director of Cruise Gate Hamburg.
On Monday 12.5.2025 Mr Maraschi took part in a high-profile panel discussion regarding Sustainable Maritime Industry alongside Tim Meyer, from Meyer Turku Shipyard, Kiki Larsen from Maersk Mc-Kinney and Niels Rytter representing the University of southern Denmark, just to mention a few of the fellow panelists.
The Baltic Sea Region Forum 2025 was organized by Centrum Balticum and covered many current topics regarding maritime safety, security and sustainability and offered a good platform for networking at the University of Turku.
After the conference Mr Maraschi had a tour at the Port of Turku to see the building site and hear about the ongoing terminal project that is in progress at the Port of Turku. The well-known ferry companies Tallink Silja Line and Viking Line that are operating daily between Stockholm and Turku, will have an ultra-modern joint terminal ready for operations at the beginning of 2027.
A significant part of the Finnish maritime cluster are the well-trained mariners who get their training and education at Aboa Mare maritime university and training center close to the Port of Turku. Since navigation in one of the world’s most vast archipelagos and sometimes challenging ice conditions is not always a “walk in the park”, Aboa Mare offers some of the most developed technologies and training programs on the market. The training center was visited by Mr Maraschi, where he got acquainted for example with the simulators that are exact replicas of the bridges of the Icon of the Seas (built in Turku) and Viking Glory, just to mention a few. The visit was hosted by Training Director Thomas Friis.
But what is a visit to Turku for a devoted cruise professional without a tour at the Meyer shipyard.
As many in the industry know, Meyer Turku delivers some of the largest and most sustainable vessels in the world.
In the production is at the moment the three next Icon class vessels ordered by Royal Caribbean group, that we got an interesting introduction of from the project manager Sami Kouvonen and Ilkka Rytkölä Ecosystem Lead at Meyer Turku. The next wonder of the cruise world; Royal Caribbeans Star of the Seas will head out for her sea trials just in a couple of weeks.
Tours to the shipyard are also available for cruise guests.
Before heading to the Turku airport, the group had a brief walk through the quiet and narrow alleys of Naantali, which is one of the popular tour destinations for cruise guests who are visiting Turku as well as locals during the summer season. If you are lucky, you might bump into the President of Finland, who has his summer residence in Naantali.
The presidential gardens are now also open for visitors.