Cruise traffic in Spanish ports in 2021: the year in review

Spanish ports received 2.22 million cruise passengers in 2021, 62.1% more than in 2020 (849,722 cruise passengers more). This is the year-end balance according to Puertos del Estado’s monthly statistics, with December data for the 28 port authorities.

The high point of the 2012–2025 series is 2025, with 14.1 million cruise passengers: 2021 was 84.3% below it and ranks 13th of the 14 years with data.

In the 2021 ranking, the ports moving up on 2020 are Barcelona (from 3rd to 1st), Baleares (from 4th to 3rd) and Valencia (from 7th to 6th); those moving down are Las Palmas (from 1st to 2nd), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (from 2nd to 4th) and Málaga (from 6th to 7th).

Cruise calls: 2,104 calls in 2021, 182.8% more than in 2020. Santa Cruz de Tenerife ranks first on this measure, with 506 calls.

Barcelona ranks first among port authorities with 520,854 cruise passengers in 2021 (161.9% more than in 2020). It is followed by Las Palmas (450,299 cruise passengers) and Baleares (345,099 cruise passengers). Together, the three account for 59.3% of the total.

The largest increases were recorded by Alicante (+1,701.3%), Valencia (+397.9%) and A Coruña (+358.2%); the steepest falls by Las Palmas (−12.9%) and Santa Cruz de Tenerife (−11.8%). The comparison is limited to port authorities that account for at least 1% of the total, so that an extreme swing at a small player does not distort the picture.

The rest of the top ten are Santa Cruz de Tenerife (4th, 304,405 cruise passengers, −11.8%), Bahía de Cádiz (5th, 133,511 cruise passengers, +228.1%), Valencia (6th, 130,869 cruise passengers, +397.9%), Málaga (7th, 118,330 cruise passengers, +194.6%), Cartagena (8th, 70,087 cruise passengers, +271.6%), Alicante (9th, 43,466 cruise passengers, +1,701.3%) and Vigo (10th, 34,656 cruise passengers, +267.7%).

At the bottom of the table are Avilés (137 cruise passengers), Pasaia (137 cruise passengers) and Bahía de Algeciras (94 cruise passengers), out of a total of 28 port authorities with data.

The distribution is highly concentrated: the top five account for 79% of the total and 6 port authorities are enough to reach 80%, while the other 18 port authorities further down share the remaining 3%. 14 of the 18 port authorities with a comparison grew compared with 2020, 13 of them by double digits, and 4 fell.

Of the 12 months of 2021 with data, 9 are above the same month of 2020 and 3 below; over the last three months (October, November, December) the figure is up 1,711.2% on the same months of 2020; the largest year-on-year difference was in October (up 89,666.6%); the highest point in the series was October, at 625,673, and the lowest February, at 31,182.

Between 2012 and 2021 the figure went from 7.6 M to 2.22 M, a decrease of 70.8% over 9 years (−12.8% a year on average). The best year was 2019 (10.7 M) and the worst 2020 (1.37 M).

Puertos del Estado counts each cruise passenger at every port where they embark, disembark or are in transit, so the same passenger can be counted at several ports on an itinerary. Calls are the arrivals of cruise ships. Passengers per call indicate the average size of the ships each port receives.

Puertos del Estado. To explore the data in detail, use PortStats · cruise passengers by port, annual series or see the original source.