The Spanish State Ports Authority will showcase the Spanish offerings at Seatrade Cruise Global, held in Miami from April 25-28, at the 418 m² Ports of Spain stand.Representatives from the Port Authorities of A Coruña, Alicante, Almería, Algeciras Bay, Cádiz Bay, the Balearic Islands, Barcelona, Bilbao, Cartagena, Ceuta, Ferrol, Huelva, Málaga, Melilla, Motril, Santander, Seville, Tarragona, Valencia, and Vigo will be present. Additionally, the Port Authorities of Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife will be represented at the Cruises Atlantic Island stand, along with numerous local institutions and service companies.
Cruise tourism continues to be a key focus for Spanish ports, as evidenced by the more than 810,340 cruise passengers who have visited one of the 46 ports of general interest in Spain. Despite a 643% increase compared to 2021, the number of cruise passengers in 2022 is 65% lower than in 2019, when 1.8 million passengers were recorded.
The year 2020 began relatively normally, but the restrictions on passenger movement imposed in March caused a collapse that lasted until the end of the year. 2021 began with the same negative trend, and it wasn't until the second half of the year, when passenger restrictions were gradually lifted, that cruise ship arrivals began to recover.
Public investment in facilities and equipment planned for passenger terminals amounts to 343.2 million euros in the period 2021-2025.
Globally, it is expected that nearly 100% of the ships that make up the CLIA fleet will be in service this coming August, with 2022 being "a vital year in terms of recovering pre-pandemic passenger volume in 2023".
Regarding pre-pandemic data for Spain, in 2019, more than 550,000 Spaniards chose a cruise as their vacation option, a figure that positions Spain as the fourth largest source market in Europe. The cruise industry in Spain generated more than 50,000 jobs that year and its revenue reached almost €6 billion, according to CLIA estimates.
