A little over ten years ago, the commercial department of the Alicante Port Authority analyzed the takeoff that the nearby port of Cartagena had been experiencing in the cruise sector, with constant increases in passengers that distanced it in the ranking. Cartagena, with a significant surplus due to the benefits that merchandise traffic provided, could afford to lower the rates it charged to passenger shipping companies, something that state law did not allow ports that were in losses, as This was the case of Alicante, hard hit by the brutal drop in cement and other bulk traffic caused by the 2008 crisis.
Already then, the Port Authority chaired by Miguel Campoy entered into conversations with one of the main shipping companies in the world, MSC, aimed at having its cruise division bet on establishing a base in Alicante, as it had been doing with great success in Valencia. After exceeding 100,000 cruise passengers in 2011 for the first time, Alicante once again fell below that number, which it did not recover until 2018. Then the pandemic would come.
Today, with the return of normality, the push of tourism and MSC’s commitment to include Alicante in its Mediterranean routes with the possibility of boarding and disembarking in the city on 25 of them, it is expected to close 2023 with the arrival of 89 ships that could carry 221,000 passengers, which would mean almost doubling last year’s record number: 117,000 passengers.
According to the Councilor for Tourism of Alicante, Ana Poquet, such a ticket would leave more than 40 million direct euros in the city. Adding the indirect and induced impacts, the amount can rise to more than 70 million euros.
Poquet highlights “the good acceptance that Alicante is having as a destination and cruise base port with a forecast released by the sector’s employers for the arrival of around 120 ships by 2024, in addition to registering a high acceptance of the city and expressing about 25% of cruise passengers intend to return, which shows the projection and impact that the Alicante capital and the province are having in this tourist market”.
Alicante is far from the great national leaders in cruise tourism (with data from the first half of 2023): Barcelona (1 million 379 thousand), the Balearic Islands (916 thousand), Las Palmas (840 thousand), Tenerife (612 thousand), Valencia (277 thousand), Cádiz (234 thousand) and Málaga (194 thousand), but very close to surpassing its main competitor, due to proximity and area of ??influence, Cartagena.
In the first months of 2023, Alicante received 64,450 passengers and Cartagena 66,450, but the most significant thing is the trend, because while the Murcian port lost 16% of passengers compared to 2022, Alicante gained 137.8%, a much higher increase to the national average, which was 87.1%.
Poquet highlights “the good work being done by the Alicante Costa Blanca Tourism and Cruises Association to attract new calls and attract operators, as well as companies such as MSC that have fully invested in Alicante as the base port for their cruises”.
The forecasts for the year 2024 suggest that the number of cruise ships with a base port or with a stopover in the city will be around 120, data that could cause the number of arrivals of cruise passengers to triple compared to that registered in 2022. From the sector’s employers’ association of cruises remember that the cruise passenger spends about 80 euros per day and generates an impact on the creation of employment of 745 jobs for each day of cruise in the city.
