BTJ 3/2008 - Baltic Transport Journal

Hamburg: a port as a tourist attraction
Face to face with giants
A port as a tourist attraction –
they really know how to achieve
this in Hamburg.
“Metropolis on Water” – this slogan is used
to attract tourists, students, and investors from
all over the world to Hamburg. No other city
or region in Germany can boast of such an impressive
growth of visitors. But the goal of the
city is to join the elite top ten European tourist
destinations.
In the past several years Hamburg has invested
much in its tourist infrastructure, thus
creating a basis for the development of this
sector. The most important investments include
the development of the Congress and
Fair Centre, an airport, and the new terminal
for cruisers. In the future an impressive concert
house on the river bank, the “Elbphilharmonie”,
and the new Hafen-City real estate will
emphasize attractiveness, development and the
port atmosphere of Hamburg.
Last year the number of nights spent by
visitors, which is the most reliable indicator of
tourism development, amounted to 7.4m, an
increase of 3.1%. Germans represented 79% of
the total number of tourists in Hamburg last
year with 21% of foreigners. Arising tourism
from Europe, Russia and Arab countries, as
well as low-cost airlines’ expansion are of crucial
importance for these developments.
A bit of history…
However, the “Metropolis on Water” involves,
first of all, water and the port. In this
respect Hamburg is unique among world harbour
cities as the port is virtually in the city
centre. When walking along the Elbe river one
can admire the sailing ships, their manouvres,
docking and the loading operations.
Few people know, however, that in Hamburg
one can experience a fascinating journey
back into the history of the port without ever
leaving the coach.
On 7th March 1885 Hamburg entrepreneurs
and Senators established ‘Hamburg Free
Port and Warehouse Company’ (Hamburger
Freihafen und Lagerhaus-Gesselachaft HFLG).
At that time it was the largest warehouse complex
made of red bricks and founded on oak
piles; today it remains the biggest warehouse
complex in the world and one of the key tourist
attractions in Hamburg. The construction
was driven by the incorporation of the free city
of Hamburg into the customs zone of the Ger-
In 2007 visitors spent 7.4m nights in Hamburg
man Reich in 1888. After that date the port,
not the whole city, constituted the duty-free
zone. Therefore the port, and hence its warehouse
areas, had to be used effectively. The response
to that problem was the construction of
the “Granary Town” (Speicherstadt) in 1885–
1912. In 1935 HFGL merged with the ‘State
Quay Association’, resulting in the foundation
of ‘Hamburg Port and Warehouse Joint Stock
Company’ (Hamburger Hafen- und Lagerhaus
Aktiengesellschaft HHLA), today called ‘Hamburg
Port and Logistics Joint Stock Company’
(Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG). With
almost four thousand employees, HHLA is the
largest employer in the Hamburg port and the
whole logistics sector of the land.
“Face to face with giants” is a coach trip along
container terminals and across the 800-year history
of the port in Hamburg. It is a trip into the
times when cargos were sacked and transshipped
manually, when ships stayed in port for so long
that every seaman had time to visit the Reeper
Bahn (Hamburg’s red light district).
…and a terminal of the 21 st century
There is a 60 m high view over the entire
port as one crosses the Kohlbrandbrücke
bridge and returns to the present. Special authorised
coaches take tourists to the very centre
of container terminals. The modern port
lets visitors behind its usually closed scenes. At
Maritime
the Burchardkai terminal one may see the gigantic
Van-Carriers, i.e., vehicles which transport,
sort and arrange containers while at Altenwerder
this is carried out by self-propelled,
semi-intelligent vehicles that move around
without human control. In both terminals the
whole picture is topped with huge cranes and
container ships moored at quays, with a capacity
of up to 8,000 containers.
CTA, i.e., the Altenwerder terminal, is one
of the most modern container terminals in the
world. A new concept of automation has been
designed and implemented here, with a large part
of the transshipping equipment and software innovatively
designed particularly for this terminal.
The aim of the changes was to increase the productivity
of container handling, rationalise and
improve the quality of labour, shorten the mooring
time at terminal quays, improve planning and
reduce costs. But the most important idea was to
reduce the necessary area, the number of cranes
and the length of quays compared to traditional
container terminals. All these achievements are
impressive and definitely worth seeing, whether
you are a maritime professional or a tourist looking
for something more.
During the trip you can find answers to
questions that you might ask yourself walking
along the bank of the Elbe. Before, only the
staff knew the port from this side!
Lukasz Soltysiak
3/2008 | Baltic Transport Journal | 53