Based on planned port calls and other factors, the forecast for the end of the 2021-22 season is that Las Palmas will exceed half a million cruise passengers. This is great news for the sector—which is still reeling from the costs of many months of total shutdown worldwide due to COVID-19—and for the companies and self-employed individuals who provide a wide range of services on land to ships, crew, and passengers.
The president of the Port Authority of Las Palmas, Luis Ibarra, today presented plaques to the MSC Seaview and Silver Moon cruise ships that were making their first stop at the Port of Las Palmas, where they shared berth at the Santa Catalina Dock with the ships La Belle des Oceans and World Voyager.
“The much-desired return to normality begins with details such as having four cruise ships operating today in the Port of Las Palmas and on the island,” explained Luis Ibarra.
During 2019, Spanish ports handled more than 10.6 million cruise passengers, of which almost 1.5 million called at the ports of Arrecife, Puerto del Rosario, and Las Palmas. In 2020, at the height of the global pandemic, national figures fell to 1.3 million passengers (-87.11 percent), with the port of Las Palmas receiving 517,241 passengers (-65.24 percent).
This smaller decline than the national average was due to the reactivation of activity, as a pilot test for Europe, in the Canary Islands last November 2020. The health protocols that emerged from the coordination between shipping companies, health authorities and port authorities served as a basis for resuming cruise traffic in Spain last summer.
In the current 2021-22 winter season, the number of passengers will once again exceed half a million, confirming that the applied protocols work and that cruise sector customers have accepted them, maintaining demand.
One of the keys is reducing the number of ships on board. Therefore, shipping companies have significantly increased the number of port calls to improve turnover and meet demand. From 206 calls in the 2020-21 season, they will reach 677 calls in the 2021-22 season.
