Adriatic Cruise Winners? Ravenna's +443.7% and Trieste's +212% Since 2016 Hide a 2025 Fall and an Untested Venice Story

Where the two percentages come from

The figures appear on page 18 of the Speciale Crociere 2026, published in March 2026. The text lists ports with triple-digit growth against 2016 and names "Ravenna (+443,7%)" and "Trieste (+212%)" among them. Page 20 adds that Ravenna went from fewer than 50,000 passengers in 2016 to almost 250,000 in 2025. The underlying numbers are in the report's table 4: 45,613 and 248,015 for Ravenna, 145,991 and 455,469 for Trieste. The division gives +443.7% and +212.0%.

The unit matters. Risposte Turismo counts passenger movements, the sum of embarkations, disembarkations and transits. A passenger who starts and ends a cruise in Ravenna is counted twice. A passenger whose ship stops for a day in Trieste is counted once. These are port throughput figures. They are not counts of people, and they are not counts of visitors to either city.

The series also matters. Risposte Turismo's national total for 2025 is 14,742,938 movements in 62 ports. Cemar Agency Network, a cruise agency group, publishes a different total of 14,789,318 for the same year across 72 ports, as reported by Shipping Italy in January 2026. Each is valid in its own series. Port shares in this article use Risposte Turismo throughout, because Risposte publishes the 2016 base for both ports in the same table.

We first saw the growth figures credited to PortNews. We could not find that article, so this piece cites the report that contains the numbers. A Forbes Italia column of 24 July 2026 repeated the Trieste figures, from about 146,000 in 2016 to over 455,000 in 2025, and credited the port's position in expedition and luxury cruising. The column cited no source for that explanation.

The small-base effect

The report names Ravenna first among several ports with triple-digit gains, ahead of Portofino at +328.1% and Trieste. In absolute terms it added 202,402 movements. Trieste, with the smaller percentage, added 309,478. Venice, over the same period, lost 1,021,376. Percentages computed on small bases rank ports by where they started, which is a different question from where the traffic went.

The national context shows the scale. Ravenna's 2016 total was 0.4% of Italy's 11,083,245 cruise movements. Its 2025 total was 1.7% of 14,742,938, which placed it 13th of 62 ports. Trieste moved from 1.3% to 3.1% and ranks 12th. Venice moved from 14.5% to 4.0%. These shares are our arithmetic on Risposte's figures. The national total grew 33.0% over the nine years, so part of every port's growth reflects a larger Italian market.

The choice of base year changes the headline. Risposte Turismo's previous edition, the Speciale Crociere 2025, measured growth against 2015 and gave Ravenna +581.2% and Trieste +286.4% for 2024. Measured from 2016 to 2023, Ravenna's growth would have been +625.6%, on our arithmetic. The headline figure for Ravenna has been shrinking each year because the port has been shrinking. Both base years are valid, and the year should be stated with the percentage every time.

Ship size has moved in opposite directions at the two ends of the comparison. Trieste handled 61 calls in 2016 and 131 in 2025, so average movements per call rose from about 2,390 to about 3,480 (derived). Venice handled 529 calls in 2016 and 337 in 2025, and its average fell from about 3,040 to about 1,730. That fits the smaller premium ships Venice's terminal operator describes. It does not show where the larger ships went.

Bari offers a steadier comparison on the same coast. It handled 400,875 movements in 2016 and 550,817 in 2025, according to Risposte Turismo, a rise of 37.4% on our arithmetic. In absolute terms Bari added 149,942 movements, fewer than Trieste and not far short of Ravenna, and Puglia's ports grew 8.6% in 2025 while Ravenna and Trieste fell. Bari's percentage will never make a headline, because it started large. Its growth over the nine years was close to the national rate of 33.0%, and it kept growing in 2025.

The headline leaves out falling years at both ports

Ravenna's record year was 2023, according to its port authority. The authority's statistics office counted 330,952 cruise passenger movements on 99 calls, as reported by Shipping Italy in February 2024, and called it a record. The total fell 17.7% to 272,219 in 2024, according to Risposte Turismo, and 8.9% to 248,015 in 2025. Over two years the port lost a quarter of its traffic, about 82,900 movements on our arithmetic.

The port authority gives a reason for 2025. Its year-end release says construction of the new maritime station at Porto Corsini created structural limits on berthing ships. Work formally began with a first-stone ceremony on 24 October 2024, Shipping Italy reported. That explanation fits 2025. It does not cover 2024, most of which came before the works started, and we found no published reason for the 2024 fall. Calls barely moved in 2025, from 86 to 83, so fewer passengers per call carried most of the decline.

Trieste's high point in the editions we opened was 2024, with 518,757 movements on 154 calls. The port authority had marked 500,000 passengers on 11 November 2024, with 177,540 embarkations, 176,586 disembarkations and 147,686 transits at that date. That was a mid-November count. The full-year figure appeared in the Speciale Crociere 2025. In 2025 Trieste fell 12.2% to 455,469, and calls fell 14.9% to 131. Risposte Turismo's report lists Trieste among the ports with the sharpest declines and gives no reason.

Trieste mixes turnaround and transit traffic more than Ravenna does. In 2025 it handled 326,900 embarkations and disembarkations and 128,569 transits, so 28.2% of its movements were passengers on a day call. At Ravenna the transit share was 17.2%. A port with more transit calls depends on where lines route their ships during the week. A home port depends on whether a line chooses to start and end its cruises there.

The terminal operator saw the fall coming. In November 2025 Trieste Terminal Passeggeri expected to close the year at about 450,000 passengers, down from 518,000 in 2024, because of 13 fewer ship calls, according to Ports Europe. The final figure came in slightly above that expectation. Trieste Terminal Passeggeri's own company profile reports 520,130 passengers on 212 calls for 2022, a scope it does not define, so whether 2024 was the port's record depends on a figure we could not reconcile.

Venice moved the other way in 2025. Risposte Turismo counts 584,284 movements, up 6.7% on 2024 in its June 2026 release. Its February 2025 edition had estimated 2024 at 540,000, so the 2024 base has been revised, and a change computed on the old estimate would overstate the rise. A year in which Venice grew while Ravenna and Trieste both fell does not prove anything about displacement. It does show that the three ports do not move as one system.

The forecast record cuts both ways. Risposte Turismo's February 2025 forecast put Trieste at 520,000 for 2025, and the outturn was 12.4% lower. The same forecast put Ravenna at 231,027, and the outturn beat it by 7.4%. Both ports also came in above the projections Risposte published for 2024 in October that year. Port-level forecasts depend on cruise-line deployment decisions, which can change within a season.

2026 forecasts split the pair

Three forecasts for Ravenna exist from three dates. In November 2025 the port authority expected about 390,000 movements on 111 calls, 71 of them turnarounds, an increase of about 58%. In March 2026 the Speciale Crociere 2026 put the figure at 398,956 on 112 calls, up 60.9%, and named Ravenna among eight Italian ports expected to set passenger records. In June 2026 Risposte Turismo's Adriatic Sea Tourism Report gave 390,000 on 108 calls. All three sit above the 2023 peak of 330,952.

The Ravenna forecasts rest on the new terminal. The port authority describes a building of about 5,000 square meters on two floors, able to handle two ships at once, about 7,000 passengers, with a 250-meter elevated walkway. The terminal operator, Ravenna Civitas Cruise Port, is controlled by Icon Infrastructure and Royal Caribbean Group, according to Shipping Italy. The port authority expected the station to open around the start of the 2026 season. We did not find a confirmation that it opened on schedule, and no 2026 actuals had been published when we checked.

The forecasts imply one more thing about Ravenna. The port authority's 2026 split is about 383,000 turnaround movements and 7,000 in transit. In 2025, 82.8% of Ravenna's movements were embarkations and disembarkations, according to Risposte. The forecast implies a port almost entirely given over to home-port traffic, where cruises start and end. Its traffic is also highly seasonal. June to September carried 79.8% of its 2025 passengers in Risposte's monthly breakdown.

Trieste is forecast to fall again. The Speciale Crociere 2026 expects 380,000 movements on 126 calls, down 16.6%. The June Adriatic report raised that to 400,000 on 137 calls, still down 12.2%. Either figure would leave Trieste below its 2022 level as reported by the port operator and well above its 2016 base. The reports do not explain the expected decline.

Venice also has two 2026 forecasts. Risposte Turismo expects 530,000 movements on 310 calls, down 9.3%, a figure it marks as its own estimate. Venezia Terminal Passeggeri, the terminal operator, expects 543,000 ocean and river cruise passengers on 366 calls, down 12%, as reported by Shipping Italy in March 2026. The two forecasts use different scopes and different 2025 bases and should be quoted with their source. Our earlier cruise statistics article listed the 530,000 figure as a claim that failed verification. It is Risposte Turismo's forecast.

Did Venice's loss become Ravenna's and Trieste's gain?

The Venice rule is specific. Decree-law 103 of 2021, in force from 21 July 2021, bans transit through the Bacino di San Marco, the Canale di San Marco and the Giudecca Canal from 1 August 2021 for ships with any of four features: over 25,000 gross tons, over 180 meters long at the waterline, over 35 meters of air draft (sail-motor ships excepted), or burning fuel with 0.1% sulfur or more while maneuvering. The decree also declared those three waterways national monuments. It is a ban on a route for large ships. Cruise ships still call at Venice, at Marghera and Fusina, and at the Marittima and San Basilio for smaller vessels.

The arithmetic gives a sense of scale. Venice lost 1,021,376 movements between 2016 and 2025. Ravenna and Trieste gained 511,880 between them. If every one of those new movements had come from Venice, the two ports would have absorbed about half of Venice's loss. That share is derived. It compares net totals and does not estimate displacement. Each port could have gained some ships from Venice while losing others elsewhere, and the net figures would hide both movements.

The published data cannot fill in the rest. The figures count movements at each port. They do not record where a passenger would have sailed otherwise, which itinerary a line replaced, or whether a ship that left Venice moved to the Adriatic at all. Risposte Turismo's reports on 2025 and its Adriatic report do not mention displacement. Our earlier work on Venice's cruise traffic reached the same gap, and so did this one.

Some diversions are documented, and they are weather events. In November 2019 three ships bound for Venice, two from MSC and one from Costa, were sent to Trieste because of storms and high water, Il Nordest reported. In May 2022 Shipping Italy reported that six of 23 ships bound for Marghera that season had been diverted to Trieste by wind. The same article put Trieste's 2021 total at 240,000 and its 2022 target at 500,000, under a headline calling the port the "new Venice" of cruising. The phrase was the publication's framing. No official source we found adopts it.

The timing is consistent with a Venice effect and with other explanations. Trieste's growth came mostly after 2019, when Il Nordest projected over 160,000 passengers, and cruising was restarting after the pandemic at the same time as the Venice decree took effect. Lines also changed itineraries for reasons the published figures do not separate. Ravenna's operator is part-controlled by Royal Caribbean Group, and no source we opened gives the share of Ravenna's calls made by that group's brands. A test of displacement would need line-level deployment data or passenger-origin data, and neither is published.

A real test is possible in principle. It would compare, ship by ship and season by season, where the vessels that used to call at Venice's Marittima went after August 2021, and how many of their passengers embarked in Ravenna or Trieste instead. Cruise lines hold that information in their deployment schedules, and ports hold it in their berth records. Neither publishes it in a form that allows the comparison. Passenger-origin surveys at each port would add a second check, and none were found for Ravenna or Trieste.

What can be said is narrower. Venice's cruise traffic in 2025 was 63.6% below 2016. Ravenna and Trieste were both far above 2016 and both below 2024. Venice itself grew in 2025. Venice remains a larger cruise port than either of them, and it is also changing for other reasons, from Venice's day-tripper access fee to the long decline in Venice's resident population.

The wider Adriatic cruise market

Risposte Turismo's Adriatic Sea Tourism Report 2026 counts 5,333,553 cruise passenger movements and 3,718 calls across more than 30 Adriatic ports in 2025. It forecasts 5.7 million movements and 4,003 calls for 2026. Italy's Adriatic ports handled 2,063,403 movements, 38.7% of the total. Croatia handled 29.0%, Greece 16.9%, Montenegro 12.2%, Slovenia 2.5% and Albania 0.7%.

The largest Adriatic cruise ports are not Italian. On figures derived from the report's 2026 forecast table, Corfu handled about 894,000 movements in 2025 and Dubrovnik about 625,000, both ahead of Venice. Kotor in Montenegro was close behind Venice, with Bari next. Trieste ranked seventh in that list, Zadar in Croatia eighth and Ravenna ninth. Trieste was 8.5% of the Adriatic total and Ravenna 4.7%, on our arithmetic. Risposte Turismo's release of 11 June 2026 put the Adriatic's 2025 growth at 3.4% in passengers and 4.9% in calls, so Trieste and Ravenna both fell in a year when the sea as a whole grew.

The 2026 forecasts point to growth on the eastern shore. Corfu is expected to reach 1,000,000 movements, Dubrovnik 675,078 and Kotor 615,000. Trieste and Venice are forecast to lose the most passengers in the table, 55,469 and 54,284. Smaller falls are forecast at Korčula, Zadar, Chioggia and Hvar. Ravenna shows the largest gain in the table, 141,985. Any account of Adriatic cruise winners and losers now has to include Greek, Croatian and Montenegrin ports alongside the Italian ones.

Within Italy's Adriatic share, three ports dominate. Venice, Trieste and Ravenna together handled 1,287,768 movements in 2025, about 62% of the Italian Adriatic total, on our arithmetic. Bari accounts for most of the rest, followed by Brindisi with about 104,000 and Ancona with 78,228. Risposte Turismo's Veneto total of 617,454 is higher than its Venice figure because it includes Chioggia, a separate lagoon port that handled about 33,000 movements. The Italian side of the sea therefore rises and falls with a handful of home ports, while the largest ports on the eastern side, Corfu, Dubrovnik, Kotor and Split, are all forecast to grow in 2026.

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

Travelers booking an Adriatic cruise from Ravenna or Trieste are most likely starting or ending their trip there, since both are mainly home ports. Ravenna's cruise terminal is at Porto Corsini, outside the city, so arrange transfers in advance, and confirm which building your line uses in 2026 while the new station comes into service. Summer is busy at Ravenna, where June to September carried four in five passengers in 2025. The city's Byzantine mosaics are a short trip from the port and a train ride from Bologna, covered in our Bologna travel guide. Trieste's ships berth in the city, and Trieste's airport has grown fast since a national law lifted the municipal surcharge on air tickets there in 2024, which matters for fly-cruise passengers. Cruises that still sail from Venice use Marghera, Fusina or the Marittima; our Venice travel guide covers the city itself.

Tourism businesses and investors should treat Ravenna's 2026 numbers as forecasts tied to one terminal and a small number of lines. The port authority's own split implies about 98% turnaround traffic, which brings hotel nights and transfer demand before and after sailings and few transit passengers. The binding constraint at Ravenna has been berth capacity during construction. At Trieste it has been calls, which fell by 23 to 131 in 2025 and are forecast at 126 to 137 in 2026. Anyone underwriting either port on the strength of the 2016 comparison would be using a growth rate that has not applied since 2023 at Ravenna or since 2024 at Trieste. A Ravenna outturn near 390,000 in 2026, and a Trieste figure that stabilizes above 400,000, would change that assessment.

Journalists and analysts can cite, from Risposte Turismo's Speciale Crociere 2026: Ravenna 248,015 cruise passenger movements in 2025, +443.7% on 2016 and -8.9% on 2024; Trieste 455,469, +212% on 2016 and -12.2% on 2024; Venice 584,284, against 1,605,660 in 2016; Italy 14,742,938 in 62 ports. Always state the base year and call these passenger movements. Do not write that Ravenna and Trieste absorbed Venice's lost traffic, because no source measures it, and do not credit the percentages to PortNews. Do not quote 500,000 as Trieste's 2024 total, since it was a mid-November count. The series finding this article adds is that a port's long-run growth rate and its latest year can point in opposite directions, and that the cruise data Italy publishes counts movements at ports but never the routes passengers would otherwise have taken.