GOVERNANCE AND EFFICIENCY OF MEDITERRANEAN CRUISE TERMINALS Assunta Di Vaio 1 , Francesca Romana Medda 2 1. Introduction The cruise line industry has experienced considerable growth in recent years (Hobson, 1993; Dickinson, Vladimir, 2008; Cartwright, Baird, 1999; Bjornsen, 2003) and starting from the 1990s the cruise industry has become one of the fastest growing segments of the travel industry. The inter- relationships between maritime tourism, cruise tourism and maritime leisure are combined in the cruise industry, which is distinctly defined as a segment of tourism and leisure industry (Wild, Dearing, 2000). Cruises are one form of vacation (Coleman et al., 2003) and international cruising is one form of tourism in which the travel element is an integral part of the consumer experience. Cruise line companies rely on high passenger intake by providing comfort, quality, safety, and enjoyment (Cottam et al., 2007). The demand for cruising worldwide has increased exponentially as we can observe in figure 1; between 1995 and 2005 growth passed the 10 million passenger mark, and by 2005 had exceeded 14 million. According to estimates, international demand will increase from nearly 19 million passengers in 2010 to about 25 million in 2015 (Peisley, 2003). 1 University of Naples “Parthenope”, Department of Business Administration, Via Medina, 40 – 80132 Naples, susy.divaio@uniparthenope.it. 2 University College London, Centre for Transport Studies, Chadwick Building, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT, London, f.medda@ucl.ac.uk