Ibiza is to launch tough new action against the thousands of cruise liners which head for the Spanish holiday island every year.
Despite the valuable income obtained from passengers, Ibiza council says it is going to control arrivals as part of the crackdown on “tourist massification”.
The new plan intends to ban the arrival of two cruise ships at the same time.
The island will be following the lead of Mallorca which became the first Spanish destination to regulate the arrival of cruise ships into Palma two years ago, imposing a limit of two a day.
Ibiza’s president, Vicent Marà has stressed the need to work jointly with the Port Authority to regulate the simultaneous arrival of cruises to the island.
“When the arrival of more than two cruises occurs simultaneously, the port and transport services collapse, which generates a problem in Ibiza town,” he said.
For this reason, he said there would be greater planning with the Port Authority to ban the simultaneous arrival of more than two cruise liners to the port of Ibiza.
“We are not against the arrival of cruises but we ask that it occurs in a more orderly and planned way,” added the president.
“This lack of planning affects both the residents, who suffer this saturation at the time of arrival and tourists who take a bad image of their stay.”
In 2023, Ibiza beat all the historical records for arrivals of cruise passengers. A total of 548,969 cruise members arrived in Ibiza, which represented an 86 percent increase compared to the more than 295,368 passengers recorded in 2022.
Taking into account that Ibiza registered an annual resident population of 159,180 inhabitants in 2023, it is estimated that the whole of cruise members who visited the island exceeded 3.45 times the resident population. In 2023, a total of 188 cruises in transit arrived on the island, which represents an increase of 34 percent compared to the 140 cruises recorded in 2022.
Environmentalists have voiced deep concern over the impact of the cruise ships, with one saying: “During the 12 hours that these giants travel through our coast, they saturate the resources on which we depend deeply. This phenomenon moves us more and more from tourist sustainability and helps increase the negative impact on our ecosystems.”
Ibiza council says it greatly values cruise ship passengers who spend around 17million euros (£14.3m) a year when they visit the town, boosting restaurants, bars, tourist attractions and other amenities.
However, when cruise ships arrive together, it produces massive queues at the port for taxis and public transport and leads to huge congestion in the town.
Another idea being suggested is to stagger the disembarking of passengers, rather than 5,000 at a time.
In July and August, Ibiza port saw three cruise ship arrivals at the same time on several occasions and this will happen again in September.
“When more than two cruises arrive simultaneously, there is a collapse in the port of all transport services and this generates an important problem to the municipality of Ibiza, which in summer is already saturated. That is why we want to address the Port Authority to make more appropriate planning,” said Mr Mari.