The social and economic importance of this growing industry can be seen from the fact that every year more than 20 million passengers decide to enjoy a cruise for their vacations.
The growth trend in the cruise sector continues across the whole of Europe, with a new record income being set of close to 38,000 million euros.
In Spain’s case cruising’s economic contribution stands at around 1,255 million euros, making it the fourth largest market in terms of income generated by the industry.
Last year Spanish ports received a total of 5.2 million European cruise ship passengers, maintaining the country’s second place in the European list of passenger visits. Spain is also the second most popular country as the embarkation point, with 1.2 million passengers, meaning that one out of every five passengers who embark in Europe do so at a Spanish port.
The cruise industry generates nearly 30,000 jobs for Spain, a figure that has been growing since 2008, in spite of the economic crisis. It has gone from 22,397 in that year to 26,389 in 2012, an increase of 18%.
These good results have been maintained across the whole of Europe, with the ‘old continent’ being one of the preferred destinations of cruise passengers around the world.
Around 5.7 million passengers embarked on a cruise from a European port in 2012, an increase of 2.5% over 2011. Of these nearly one million were from outside Europe.
According to the Annual Economic Impact Report 2013 from the cruise industry trade body, European shipbuilders, who construct the majority of the most modern cruise ships in the world, have reported an increase in the spend on the construction and maintenance of the ships. During the four-year period 2013-2016 twenty new cruise ships will be built with a total combined capacity of 60,000 passengers and a total value in excess of 10.500 million euros.