Cruise Shipping Saturation?

Palma port received four cruise ships on Tuesday morning which were carrying more than 10,000 passengers. It seems strange that, with most of the island having gone into touristic hibernation, so many tourists can appear, even if they then disappear rapidly. Still, an estimated one million euros of spend from the 10,000 are not to be sniffed at, though whether all cafés were open to accept the 10,000 is doubtful. They came into port in the early morning, and there are cafés which don't open until midday. Winter hours. Oh well, their loss, though it must be asked, as it is often is, whether these cruising tourists were actually spending in Palma and not being whisked off to parts of the island on excursions.

Cruise tourism continues to be, so to speak, buoyant. Growth expectations for the Balearics in 2015 are placed at 30%, which represents some considerable growth if the forecasts turn out to be accurate. But is this growth about to plateau? Certain industry observers suggest that it might. The Western Mediterranean, they argue, is close to cruising saturation point. This is not the view, however, of cruise operators like Royal Caribbean and Costa. There is further room for growth. Spain, including therefore Mallorca, has not reached a point of product maturity, while the range of customer types allows for a diversified cruise product such as, one might suggest, a November cruise in the Mediterranean which stops off in Palma. It is quite different to the all-inclusive-style floating leviathans of summer.

Arriving midweek, passengers would have found shops open if not all the cafés. The old chestnut of shop opening times at weekends in Palma needs to be considered not just in the context of cruise tourism but also that of a campaign unveiled at national level. The "Shopping Tourism Plan 2015", backed up by a promotional budget of just under three million euros, aims to increase shopping spend by tourists while also attracting tourists with greater purchasing power. The campaign will go wider than just the regular European markets and bring in Russia, China and other Asian countries, the Middle-East, the USA and South America. It sounds, therefore, a highly ambitious plan, though to what extent it might have any impact in Mallorca is questionable. To take the Chinese tourism market as an example, Malaga is anticipating growth of over 50% in this market in 2015. Mallorca and the Balearics don't as yet figure with the Chinese tourism industry. Catalonia is by far the most popular region of Spain - it accounts for almost 60% of Chinese tourism - followed by Madrid with 25%.