Costa Venezia

Fincantieri Delivers Costa’s 1st Ship Designed for China

Costa Cruises took delivery of Costa Venezia, its first ship designed specifically for the Chinese market, at the Fincantieri shipyard in Monfalcone on February 28.

Image Courtesy: Fincantieri

The 135,500 gross ton Costa Venezia is part of an expansion plan that includes a total of 7 ships being delivered to the Costa Group by 2023, for a total investment of over EUR 6 billion.

Featuring a length of 323 meters and a capacity for over 5,200 guests, Costa Venezia will be the biggest ship introduced by Costa to the Chinese market.

“Costa Venezia will help us to further develop the cruise market in China, which has a great unexplored potential,” Michael Thamm, Group CEO Costa Group and Carnival Asia, said.

Suffice to say that, currently, 2.5 million Chinese people a year choose to go on a cruise vacation,

“As the first ship built specifically for the Chinese market, Costa Venezia marks the start of a new era, not only for Costa and Fincantieri but also for the Chinese cruise industry as a whole,” Mario Zanetti, President of Costa Group Asia, added.

The Costa Venezia naming ceremony is scheduled for March 1 in Trieste. The vernissage cruise will depart from Trieste on March 3, bound for Greece and Croatia. On March 8, the ship will be back in Trieste for the start of its inaugural cruise, a 53-day trip through the Mediterranean to the Middle East, South East Asia and the Far East before docking in Tokyo.

From May 18, 2019, Costa Venezia, in fact, will be dedicated exclusively to Chinese guests, offering cruises in Asia departing from Shanghai.

After Costa Venezia, the group’s next ship to come into service, in October 2019, will be Costa Smeralda, the new Costa Cruises flagship and the first ship for the world market to be powered by LNG. A second ship designed exclusively for the Chinese market, a sister ship to Costa Venezia, is currently under construction by Fincantieri in Marghera and is expected to be delivered in 2020.