This Tuesday, July 23, 2019, a demostration took place in front of Maritime Station 2 of the Port of Palma in favor of cruise tourism. The event was convened by the Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises of Mallorca (Pimem), and the call has joined several associations of the Balearic, commercial and business sector, which claimed the important role of cruise ships in the social and economic life of the business network of Palma.
The study on the economic impact of cruises in the Balearic Islands conducted in 2015 by the University of the Balearic Islands, the Chamber of Commerce of Mallorca and the Balearic Port Authority revealed that such activity generates more than 256 million euros and 5,733 jobs in the Balearic Islands.
This meeting was preceded by political declarations against cruise tourism in the Balearic Islands and the delivery of 10,316 signatures collected by the Platform against mega cruises before the Consolat del Mar in which they requested the limitation to one mega cruise per day and a maximum of 4,000 cruise passengers per day .
For their part, merchants and business owners advocate an “orderly and staggered” management of cruise ships to try to avoid the arrival of more than 3 mega cruises on the same day and the study of their effects on the environment financed by the Sustainable Tourism Tax to avoid sterile debates without proven data. Finally they remember that cruise passengers do not cause conflicts, they need few resources since they only represent 8% of tourism in Mallorca, and government can apply measures to control their flows, such as establishing various discharge points.
