Thousands of cruise passengers will take to the streets of Valencia between Thursday and Saturday in a full-fledged debate on the limits of mass tourism. According to forecasts from the Valencia Port Authority (APV), during these three days, five ships carrying 21,400 passengers will dock at the port, who will spend at most seven to eleven hours free in the city. After them, no new arrivals are expected until Thursday, August 29. This year, 272 ships are expected to arrive, carrying 793,605 passengers.
On Tuesday, Compromis presented data obtained from the APV itself and criticized that the transient presence of tens of thousands of people would only create an economic impact that would exceed the negative environmental balance caused by the means of transport by which they arrived in the city.
“The majority of these tourists, who disembark without having breakfast and in many cases have to return to the ship in time for lunch, not only do they not spend the night in the city, they do not even eat there. If the tour operators do not explain to them the local breakfast culture, which most of them are skeptical about, apart from what they consume while passing through supermarkets and tourist shops, they leave only one euro in the city. The cost to Valencia, obviously in the environmental field, but also in the regular costs such as cleaning and maintaining the footprint they leave behind, is very high,” explained the spokesperson for Compromises per Valencia, Babi Oaks.
That is why Kompromis demanded that the municipal government take urgent measures to restore this type of tourism, which is expensive and does not bring any profit, and which also causes great inconvenience to the city’s residents, especially those in the center, since it enters a few streets with thousands of citizens in a narrow range of hours of the day in which they are concentrated most of the working day.
In this sense, the Compromise party proposed last June that the municipal government adopt some initial and urgent measures to try to get the situation back on track. “If the PP and Vox had adopted them, the number of tourists who could disembark this week would have been reduced by half,” but Català preferred to respond by hinting that he was finalizing his own plan, of which we still have news. Robles added that the negative balance that each cruise leaves in the city continues to grow.
The city’s mayor, Maria José Catalá, announced on May 25 at an event organized by Governorates That in 2026 the docking of large vessels in the port of Valencia will be prohibited, in addition, unless pending legal proceedings prevent this, it will be affected by works on the northern extension. However, no further details were given about the boats that will be prohibited, except for dropping them at another event organized by the world Back in June, the idea was that only those who spent at least one night in the city would be able to access it, or failing that, those with no more than 750 passengers. However, everything is still pending according to the industry and APV, so no official announcement has been made on this matter yet.
Although it may seem that there is a time limit until 2026, the reality is that in a few months the ladders will start to close for this exercise, since those for 2025 are practically already defined, so you must be clear about the legal framework regarding the different cruise companies.
EMT Special Service
As Kompromis already denounced a few weeks ago, the costs of cruise ships arriving in the city extend to multiple levels, some of which put public money at the service of these cruise companies, as evidenced by the conversion of regular EMT buses to provide special services for passengers disembarking at the port.
“On the one hand, we have the tourist pressure of people entering our city and the discomfort they cause; on the other, the very high economic cost, with a completely negative balance; and last but not least, we have the pollution it generates and the decline in the quality of health of the people who live there. The data are frightening: the port generates 2.7 million tons of CO2 per year. If we focus on nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide, two elements that directly attack the health of the people who breathe them, we are talking about approximately 1,200 tons in the case of nitrogen oxide and 300 tons in the case of sulfur. Barbaric”, sums up the Valencian leader.
For this reason, and coinciding with this new episode of the great negative impact of cruise ships in the city, they are asking Compromise to follow their proposals or for the mayor to actually show hers. “This problem needs urgent measures. María José Catalá could take over our functions or try to propose and promote better ideas. Do not doubt that we would like that. But what she is doing now is standing with her arms folded, and the situation, in this case as in many others, is that Valencia is gradually deteriorating in the face of its negativity since she has been in power.”
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Regarding the criticisms of Compromise, sources from the municipality of Robles asked why Mayor Joan Ribó and his government team in two legislative chambers have not taken “a single measure against cruise tourism, not even to promote the breakfast culture, as Papi Robles points out, who should do it?” They criticize themselves and emphasize that the lack of prior regulation means that measures must now be taken to control tourism both in relation to cruises and tourist apartments, which the Compromises have not only not regulated, but have even relaxed the regulations, as is the case with the low-rise apartments authorized in 2018 with Ribó as mayor. Why not ask him for an explanation for this measure?
They also added that it is the municipal government of PP and Vox that is taking action, and as the mayor has already announced, the issue of large vehicles in the city will be regulated, because while others have not looked at anything for eight years on the one hand and on the other hand, the COP is working to find solutions and consensus.”
In this sense, they stressed that “it is absolutely shameful that EMT provides special services related to cruises and what cannot be denied to anyone is access to EMT at regular stations, which happens on a daily basis by cruise operators, who pay the ticket upon arrival”.
In addition, they asked Papi Robles “not to criminalize nautical tourism, which is one step away from encouraging tourism phobia, something that must be avoided, because targeting economic sectors could have dire consequences.”
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