A cruise ship home porting in Bermuda has sold most of its cabins for a series of summer voyages from the island.

Although operating at half capacity, the Viking Cruises website showed that the eight trips by the Viking Orion have sold the majority of the suites.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Transport and Tourism said the ministry was pleased with the high demand for the cruises.

She added: “We are hopeful that the success of this summer’s home porting initiative will encourage Viking to schedule regular cruise calls and return for home porting from Bermuda next year.”

The Bermuda Escape cruises, part of the Viking Cruise’s “Welcome Back” collection, will run from the island between June 15 and August 3.

The cruise line’s website showed that its July 13 and July 20 voyages have one available cabin each.

The Viking Orion, which offers suites of up to 1,448 square feet, will spend the first two days in Hamilton before putting out to sea on day three.

She will visit St George’s for two days and put out to sea again before a call on Dockyard for a day and return to Hamilton.

Stephen Todd, the chief executive officer of the Bermuda Hotel Association, said the cruises were welcome, but the island would have benefited even more if Royal Caribbean had not cancelled its plans to home port a ship in Bermuda.

But Mr Todd added: “Of course, from a general industry standpoint – and I’m talking about taxi operators, tour operators, retail, restaurants and other industry sectors – there may be a wider benefit to those industry sectors and those individuals that work within those sectors.”

He said: “The Hotel Association is all in support of any and all efforts that we can directly participate in and all other industry sectors can work towards the common goal of reopening our economy.”