A large delegation from the Spanish port system, headed by the president of State Ports, Ornella Chacón, was present at the main cruise fair held in Europe, Seatrade Cruise Med, which this year was held in Lisbon between September 19 and 21.
Seatrade Cruise Med was the setting where 23 Spanish Port Authorities (A Coruña, Alicante, Almería, Avilés, Bay of Algeciras, Bay of Cádiz, Balearic Islands, Bilbao, Cartagena, Castellón, Ceuta, Ferrol, Gijón, Huelva, Málaga, Melilla, Motril, Santander, Seville, Tarragona, Valencia, Vigo, and Vilagarcía de Arousa), as well as companies in the sector, rolled out the blue carpet (Blue Carpet is the slogan used at the Ports of Spain stand) that paves the way for this type of tourism to discover our country. During the first seven months of the year, cruise passenger traffic through Spanish ports reached 5,374,758 people, a figure that represents an increase of 20.85% compared to the same period of the previous year, reaching a new all-time high.
The president of State Ports has pointed out that “although cruise traffic represents a smaller contribution to the port system's bottom line, its importance to local and regional economies is increasingly significant, as it generates a large number of indirect jobs and provides a major boost to tourism-related sectors.” In this regard, it is worth noting that, according to data provided by the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), the direct contribution of this sector to the Spanish economy reached €1.481 billion last year, 12% more than in 2015, directly employing 31,233 people.
Furthermore, the president of State Ports has announced that the state-owned port system plans to invest approximately €262 million in infrastructure and facilities dedicated to passengers during the period 2018-2021 , of which more than €188 million will be specifically for cruise ships . These include the expansion of the Adosado dock in the port of Barcelona (€54 million); various projects in the port of Palma de Mallorca (€54 million); the maritime terminal and cruise dock in the port of Valencia (€25 million); and the expansion of the cruise dock in the port of Arrecife (€10.9 million).
Finally, Ornella Chacón highly values the selection of Malaga as the venue for the next Seatrade Cruise Med event in 2020, “it will be a new opportunity to highlight the potential and tourism offering of Spain as a preferred destination for cruise tourism.”
The above-average growth of island destinations, particularly the Canary Islands (+35%), which already account for more than 1.3 million passengers, along with the strong performance of the Atlantic ports on the Iberian Peninsula, particularly Vigo (+31.5%) and the Bay of Cadiz (+25%), suggest that 2018 will end exceeding the forecasts set by the Port Authorities themselves, which placed the closing figure at 9.4 million passengers.
Despite the aforementioned figures, Mediterranean ports remain the primary hub for cruise ships in Spain, with two out of every three passengers (66%) docking at a port along these coasts, totaling over 3.5 million passengers. Barcelona, with 1.6 million passengers, is the leading cruise port in Europe, and together with the Balearic Islands, accounts for 82% of cruise traffic on the Spanish Mediterranean coast.
