During the first eight months of the year, 1.19 million cruise passengers came into Balearic ports, which represented an increase of 16.7%. There were, as this figure suggests, more ships as well - 14.7% more, the total having been 507.
In August alone there were 104 ships and 258,595 passengers: almost 29,000 more than in August 2014.
The growth in cruise numbers in the country as a whole was by 11.5%, making 5.14 million passengers from January to August.
The number of ships - 2,200 - was up by 57 over last year. Of all passenger traffic into Spain’s ports, which was over 20 million people, a quarter of it came from cruise ships. The Balearic ports, together with those of Barcelona, Las Palmas, Tenerife and the bay of Cadiz, accounted for 83% of all cruise ship traffic.
The Balearic contribution of passenger numbers of ship arrivals was in the region of one-third of August’s total for the whole of Spain, which was 841,367 passengers (a 12.6% increase) on 304 ships, five more than in 2014.