By Francisco Cortez
Palma.—Port authorities have already confirmed that a new record number of visitors to Spanish ports has been set in the first five months of this year, and yesterday the Port of Palma was in full steam with the arrivals of the Star Flyer, Norwegian Epic, Thomson Dream and Aida Vita luxury vessels.
The Star Flyer is set to visit Puerto Soller and Colonia Sant Jordi this year, while the Norwegian Epic is currently registered in Majorca and docks in the port every Saturday.
The same with Thomson Dream and AidaVita, which are mainly orientated to the British and German markets.
Up until May, authorities confirmed that 2,68 million more cruise visitors passed through Spanish ports, a 5.79 percent increase in comparison to the same period the previous year.
Larger liners
However, during the first five months of this year, 1,406 cruise ships have docked in Spanish ports, 31 less than in 2013.
In total, 9,32 million visitors arrived by cruise ship in Spain up until May.
Out of those, 424,882 came to the Balearics, an increase of 9.4 percent, aboard 188 cruise ships that docked in the region, a four percent decline when compared to the first five months of 2013. However, cruise ships are getting larger and carrying more passengers. The Port of Barcelona, the busiest cruise port in the country, experienced a strange beginning to the year with the number of cruise ships docking in the city and the number of passengers both declining.
The same situation was seen in Valencia and Vigo.
Numbers in Las Palmas, the Canary Islands, on the other hand, increased.