Barcelona battles port authorities to curb cruise tourists
The ships, at times dwarfing the average apartment building, begin lumbering into Barcelona while much of the city is still asleep. Stretching as long as five buses, some come to embark or disembark passengers, while others disgorge thousands of daytrippers keen to glimpse the city’s modernist architecture and stroll the narrow streets of the gothic quarter.
It’s a scene that plays out daily in Barcelona – much to the chagrin of some local officials. Last Monday, five cruise ships were slated to arrive; this Friday, on 14 April, eight are expected, The Guardian reported.
As the pace of arrivals picks up in this city of 1.7 million residents, the municipality is fighting back, in hopes of tempering Barcelona’s status as one of the world’s most popular cruise destinations.
“You will be walking and all of a sudden there’s this mass of people who appear together in the street,” said Janet Sanz, the city’s deputy major and councilor responsible for ecology, urbanism and mobility. “They don’t consume anything and they don’t have an economic impact … They just wander for four or five hours and leave.”
The city has long waged battle over the number of cruise ship tourists arriving in the city which, in 2019, hit a record high of just over 3.1 million. Their efforts, however, have been consistently stymied by their lack of jurisdiction over the port.
This time around – as Sanz noted in a recent letter to the regional government – there are more reasons than ever for the region to flex its power over the port and curb arrivals, from the record-breaking number of passengers expected this year, to the precedent-setting limits put in place for Palma in Mallorca, the largest port in Spain’s Balearic islands.
The region is also wrestling with its worst drought in decades, forcing water restrictions and a scramble to clear up to 1.5 tons of fish a day from a rapidly dwindling reservoir. “It is completely incomprehensible that we’re suffering our driest year in 100 years but expecting more cruise passengers than ever,” said Sanz.