This message was delivered by a high-ranking panel including, among others, the Mayor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the Canary Islands vice-counsellor for tourism, the president of Ports of Tenerife, the president of MedCruise as well as Seatrade's general manager Andrew Williams at a press conference on Tuesday.
Declaring Santa Cruz 'the global cruise capital' for this week, Williams revealed the convention is attracting 2,500 attendees including 400 conference delegates and over 100 cruise line executives along with more than 160 exhibitors.
He stressed the great cooperation with local partners in the preparation of the event. Alberto Bernabé Teja, counsellor for Tourism of Tenerife's island government ("Cabildo de Tenerife"), described Seatrade Med as an important element in the island's goal to attract new lines and additional calls in order to ensure sustainability of Tenerife's recent cruise expansion.
Not short of optimism, Counsellor Bernabé Teja predicted 'the best was yet to come' for Tenerife in terms of the cruise trade while Santa Cruz' Mayor; José Manuel Bermúdez Esparza, described cruise and conference tourism as two important economic pillars of the city.
Ricardo Melchior Navarro, the president of Ports of Tenerife, gave a lookout on Tenerife's further perspective as a cruise destination. He particularly highlighted the new cruise terminal as a key factor in growing turnaround business.
Advocating closer cooperation among all stakeholders in the cruise sector, he suggested a better understanding between ports and cities, for example with regard to shop opening times and transport connections.
He also announced that a Letter of Intent for cooperation has been signed between the ports of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Livorno, as both ports are – though located in different areas – of a similar size with regard to cruise traffic and have thus potential for cooperation on strategic issues.
Santa Cruz de Tenerife recorded over 300 calls with 644,000 cruise passenger movements last year. Statistics reveal that Puertos de Tenerife – Ports of Tenerife; the local port authority which is in charge also of Los Christianos, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro – recorded 506 calls with 933,161 passengers in its four ports.
The Canary Islands have seen a spectacular growth of cruise tourism recently. Santa Cruz, for example, recorded only 166 calls with some 125,000 passengers back in 2000.
Tuesday saw over 200 executive partners and 42 cruise line executives participating at the CLIA Port & Destination Summit 2016 take place at the city's IBERSTAR Grand Mencey Hotel.
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