Cruises have made Spain the second most popular destination for this type of tourism in Europe. Spain boasts an abundance of tourist attractions, coastlines, and ports for cruise passengers. According to data published by Puertos del Estado (State Ports Authority), in 2016, Spain welcomed 8.5 million cruise passengers. Last year, 3,918 cruise ships called at Spanish ports, 61 more than in 2015.
Article from CruisesNews magazine
In order to offer the best possible berthing conditions, several Port Authorities invested in new infrastructure in 2016, such as terminals, dedicated docks, etc., allowing our country to maintain, and even improve, its privileged position in this trade. Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Bilbao, and Cartagena have been equipped with excellent facilities, which will undoubtedly help increase port calls and passenger numbers in the future.
Cruise Ships in Bilbao
: In 2015, a total of 43 cruise ships called at Bilbao, nine of which were visiting for the first time, bringing 70,541 cruise passengers. Half of these tourists were British, 17% German, and 13% from the United States.
Last year, 51 ships called, 19% more than in 2015, bringing a total of 85,000 tourists to the Getxo cruise port. This represents a 21% increase over the 2025 projection, well above the initial forecast of 60,000 passengers.
Furthermore, the Port Authority reported that cruise tourism had an estimated impact of €7.27 million on GDP in 2016, creating 145 jobs and generating €0.81 million in tax revenue.
Description of the Bilbao terminal
More information: The Port of Bilbao inaugurates its new Maritime Station
The works on the new maritime station for cruise ships, being carried out by the Port Authority of Bilbao and awarded in 2016 to the joint venture formed by Giroa and Excavaciones Viuda de Sainz, SA for 4.6 million euros, are progressing according to the approved plan (eleven-month execution period), so the building will be operational during the month of March. The station is located at the second cruise pier and third berth that the Port of Bilbao has in Getxo, and will provide a new boost to increase tourist traffic arriving in the Basque Country by sea.
The installation of a mobile passenger boarding bridge from the maritime station was also awarded almost simultaneously to Prosertek, SL, for an amount of 966,000 euros and a period of almost ten months.
The project has a budget of €4.6 million, and the building's design has paid particular attention to data provided by major shipping companies, international safety standards, and the characteristics of the world's best terminals. This, combined with the high standards of quality and maritime safety applied, will place this passenger terminal, which will be fifteen meters high and have 3,200 square meters of usable space, at the forefront of European terminals.
The Port of Bilbao is finalizing construction of its new cruise terminal. It will be at the forefront of European terminals in terms of quality, dynamism, brightness, functionality, and security.
The station is conceived as a large, rectangular, light, avant-garde, and very bright steel and glass container that blends seamlessly into its surroundings. It is protected by a light, curved zinc roof with six skylights to further enhance the sense of brightness.
Inside, there is a separate flow for passengers and luggage, with boarding and disembarking areas featuring independent routes and staircases.
It will consist of two main floors, as well as an intermediate mezzanine. The ground floor will house the lobby, the tourist information office, and the baggage check-in counters for departing passengers. It will also have a large area for baggage claim for disembarking passengers. The mezzanine will contain the VIP lounge and offices, while the first floor will house the waiting area, the boarding passenger control area, and the disembarkation area.
In 2017 several ships will call at Bilbao as a home port, using the new terminal.
Access from the station to ships using it will be via a mobile platform, or finger, that moves along the 170-meter gangway. This infrastructure will also be adjustable to the height of the boarding gates of any ship, regardless of its size or the tides, and will allow access for people with reduced mobility.
Baggage handling and ship logistics will take place at the dock level, next to the berthing area, in a zone completely separate from passenger traffic.
The Port Authority will also provide the dock with 222 long-term parking spaces.
The Port Authority expects this terminal to handle over 75 cruise ship calls and 100,000 passengers by 2020. This year, in addition to Pullmantur's traditional homeport calls, Bilbao will welcome the Europa 2, operated by Hapag-Lloyd, on August 1st, and the Sirena, operated by Oceania Cruises, on August 8th.
Cruises in Cartagena:
Cartagena recorded record cruise traffic figures in 2016, with 187,193 passengers and 121 port calls, representing increases of 24.54% and 12.04%, respectively, over 2015. Last year, the city welcomed maiden calls from ships such as Holland America Line's new flagship, the Koningsdam, and its sister ship, the Oosterdam; NCL's Norwegian Jade; Oceania Cruises' Sirena; and the Royal Princess, which also made Cartagena a homeport and even embarked and disembarked passengers. For 2017, the Port Authority forecasts 150 port calls and 230,000 passengers, including a quadruple port call on October 23, seven triple port calls, and 20 double port calls. In addition, the Royal Princess will make four departures from Cartagena this year in May, June, July and September, while last year there were six.
Expansion of the Cartagena Cruise Terminal:
The origins of cruise infrastructure in the port of Cartagena date back to 2001, the year in which the Cruise Terminal was inaugurated on the outer side of the Marina, an advantageous location due to its proximity to the city center. It has subsequently been expanded several times.
The Cartagena cruise ship dock, inaugurated in 2001, has been expanded several times to respond to both the growth in port calls and the larger size of the ships.
Initially, it offered a 344-meter-long docking pier with a 12-meter draft and a surface area of 3,000 m². In 2011, the docking length was extended to 560 linear meters, with a pier area of 4,500 m².
In 2012, the pier was developed with the addition of booths for the Civil Guard, Port Police, and tourist information, as well as a pergola; this project was designed by the architect Martín Lejárraga.
In 2014, the terminal's esplanade was expanded by an additional 1,400 m², and access to the terminal was improved, including a new vehicle entrance from the Alfonso XII Wharf.
In 2015, a Passenger Terminal was inaugurated within the cruise ship pier to accommodate embarkations for the Royal Princess, operated by Princess Cruises. The facilities can accommodate approximately 200 passengers and are equipped with the necessary equipment (scanner, security arch, offices for border and security document control) for a home port.
Currently, expansion works on the terminal pier, budgeted at €3.8 million, are nearing completion. These works will increase the berthing line by 144 meters, resulting in a pier over 700 meters long. The project was awarded to the joint venture.
Cartagena closed 2016 with record figures in stopovers and passengers.
The Cartagena Cruise Terminal expansion project, undertaken by Dragados, SA and Drace Infraestructuras, SA in October 2015,
began in March 2016 with preliminary dredging work. This was followed by the construction of the berm and its subsequent leveling.
Simultaneously, three concrete caissons, each 40 meters long, 12 meters wide, and 12.7 meters high, were constructed in Escombreras. These were towed to the Cruise Terminal and anchored in their respective positions on the berm.
This project has increased the berthing length from 522 meters, allowing for the simultaneous docking of two 250-meter cruise ships. With this 144-meter extension to the east, Cartagena will be able to accommodate two 300-meter cruise ships.
This project allows the Port of Cartagena to accommodate the significant increase in the number of cruise ship calls, including double and triple calls, which are becoming more frequent, as well as the growing size of cruise ships.
Cruises in Santa Cruz de Tenerife:
Since the late 1990s, the number of cruise ship arrivals has steadily increased at the facilities managed by the Port Authority of Tenerife. In 2015, the port received 506 cruise ship calls and 933,161 passengers, a 10% increase over the previous year, placing it fourth in the national ranking. Of these, 644,188 passengers disembarked in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, also representing a significant increase over the 587,000 in 2014. However, 2016 saw a decrease to 559,944 cruise passengers, around 84,000 fewer than in 2015. This decline was perhaps due more to specific decisions by cruise lines, such as the cancellation of the MSC Cruises season, than to a decline in popularity of the destination.
The new cruise terminal in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
However, the increase in the number of cruise passengers in the Canary Islands has been unstoppable in recent years. Maintaining the British base that has always characterized it, the presence of German shipping companies such as Aida, TUI, etc., has meant that the Canary Islands have gone from receiving 146,117 passengers in 1997 to two million in 2015. In 18 years, the number of passengers has increased thirteenfold. In that same period, the number of passengers using the Canary Islands as their home port has increased eighty-fourfold, an astonishing growth.
This situation has generated the need to build specific facilities for cruise ships.
The AidaCara was the first ship to dock at the new terminal in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in September 2016.
The Port Authority of Tenerife reached this conclusion some years ago, and to draft the project for the new terminal, it contacted Berenblum Busch Architecture, a North American firm with extensive experience in cruise terminal construction.
The resulting building offers a clear operational scheme and meets the requirements imposed by the Port Authority, such as incorporating two existing sheds on the Ribera Wharf into the terminal itself.
One of the defining features of the new Santa Cruz de Tenerife terminal is the use of laminated timber, to the point of being one of the buildings in Spain with the highest proportion of this material, using 1,680 m³ of timber planks.
The entire building was constructed on the Spanish mainland in four weeks and transported to Tenerife in 32 containers. Subsequent assembly took six weeks.
The resulting building has a surface area of approximately 9,000 m2 and extends lengthwise along the dock, its shape defined by the sheds, with three distinctive cores located at the ends and between the sheds. A movable walkway runs along the sea side of the building to facilitate passenger boarding. Its construction budget exceeded ten million euros.
The central core is the most unique of the three. It has three floors and houses the entrance lobby, as well as the vertical circulation: four escalators, two elevators, and two staircases. It also contains the baggage claim area, equipped with several scanners, and a lobby providing access to the dock. A baggage claim area leads to the 30-meter-long shed to the north, which is used to store luggage during disembarkation. This is topped by the northern core, which is specifically designed for airline check-in and has an exterior exit.
The new cruise terminal in Santa Cruz de Tenerife covers 9,000 square meters and has the capacity to accommodate up to 10,000 cruise passengers. With this new infrastructure, the Tenerife Port Authority aims to become a home port for numerous cruise ships.
The 25-meter-long pavilion is located south of the central core and houses the passenger check-in, waiting, and boarding area. It has 50 check-in counters, 520 seats, a cafeteria, a VIP area, and facilities for security, police, etc. It also has four shops. It is topped by the three-story southern core, which connects to the boarding walkway. It has several escalators and elevators.
After rapid construction, the terminal was inaugurated on September 22, 2016, by the AidaCara, a cruise ship that first visited the Canary Islands in 2002, carrying 1,200 passengers, mostly German. The terminal can handle up to 10,000 passengers.
The new cruise terminal was officially unveiled during the eleventh edition of Seatrade Cruise Med, the most important cruise trade fair in Europe and one of the most important in the world, where it received high praise.
This project is complemented by other smaller improvements, such as the new pedestrian walkway between the port and the city, which brings the city center closer to the dock area, connecting the Los Llanos marina with Plaza de España; and the completion of the service road tunnel at the Muelle de Enlace (Connecting Wharf), with a budget of almost seven million euros, which represents further progress in the Port-City integration project, already completed in the areas corresponding to Plaza de España and the coastal road.
Both the Port Authority and the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council continue to make progress on the Herzog & De Meuron project for the Muelle de Enlace, including the Los Llanos marina.
