The cruise sector will study the possibility of adapting the itineraries of its ships if there are demonstrations or violent protests at destinations, according to the European director of CLIA, Marie-Caroline Laurent. Laurent gave the example of several cases in France where a small group of people attacked passengers and the cruise companies responded by suspending their activity in those places.
“We should not underestimate that there is a direct impact of riots or some of the demonstrations, but especially those that are violent,” she stressed during her speech at a briefing, warning of the damage to both tourists and the local destination where the protest takes place.
In addition, the general director of CLIA Spain, Alfredo Serrano, stressed the importance of investing in infrastructure and tourism promotion to increase the attractiveness of destinations. “The companies are already making efforts by scheduling cruises in places in Spain such as La Coruña, Alicante, Almería, Cádiz, Bilbao, Cartagena, Ceuta, Balearics and Ferrol,” he added.
For her part, the senior vice-president of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), Virginia Messina, has focused on the ever-increasing global tourism offer, with the number of destinations tripling in the last decade, suggesting that new emerging powers such as Saudi Arabia and Oman are emerging, with “investments in the millions”.
“There is much more choice for tourists and where they are not welcome there are many other places where they can travel,” she warned. For Messina, the current dissatisfaction of residents stems in large part from “a lack of a governance structure at the local level”. For this reason, she has asked politicians to “sit down at the table to talk a little and understand where the pressure points are” of the sector.