Comparison of European port authorities

The paper will outline different management approaches and different organisational structures inside the Port Authorities of some of the major European ports. This research has been carried out within the framework of a continuous training project for the Ligurian port-related activities launched by the Port Authorities of Genoa, La Spezia and Savona, in partnership with the Ligurian Regional Administration, thanks partly to funding from the European Union (Jury 1997-May 1998). The ports analysed are: Antwerp, Bilbao, Geneva, Hamburg, La Spezia, Rotterdam and Savona. All these profiles and the comparisons have been made on the basis of direct interviews with senior managers from these ports. The paper will present final results of the comparison between the 7 ports, on the following topics: Mission and strategy (Port Authority's mission, planning and development process) Organisational Institutional arrangement (Port Authorities' organisational arrangements, management of leases and rents) Cost-Income structure (Cost-income structure of the Port Authorities) Marketing and promotion (Port Authorities' role in marketing and promotion of a port, port promotion structures) Training in ports (Port training institutions, relations between training, port promotion and consultancy) The result of this paper is a comparison of different approaches towards management of ports, a sign of different situations inside European ports.