Saturated by cruise-ship passengers? Numbers for the Balearics were down for the first six months.

Saturated by cruise-ship passengers? Numbers for the Balearics were down for the first six months. | Click

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma16/08/2016 00:00
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There has been much talk about Palma being inundated at times by cruise-ship passengers, but the half-yearly figures for passenger traffic show a decrease of more than four per cent. The total of some 625,000 passengers does, however, apply to all the state ports in the Balearics, of which Ibiza and Mahon are of some significance (Alcudia and La Savina are of minor significance).

The number of ships also fell. This was by 1.7% to 288. Nevertheless, the Balearic Ports Authority has been quick to point out that between January and June the ports ranked second behind Barcelona.

Over the first six months Spain's ports received 3.43 million cruise-ship passengers. These represented a 3.8% fall. The number of ships was down a fraction to 1,643. In June the number of ships was down by one to 267, while passenger numbers were up by 13%. The national ports authority is predicting that come the end year of the year the total number of passengers will have risen by around 200,000 to 8.6 million.

Up to the end of June Barcelona had the greatest number of passengers - over a million - and ships (295). The Balearic ports were second, while Las Palmas was third with 263 ships and just over 600,000 passengers.