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Cartagena tourism to see a bumper April due to ultraluxury cruise ships
The city is seeing ever more cruise tourism, especially from the luxury and ultraluxury sectors
After the positive tourist numbers for the Semana Santa holiday this year, April has started in the best possible way for the Region of Murcia. Two cruise ships have docked in Cartagena in the first two days of this month, including the Sun Princess from Princess Cruises, arriving with almost 8,000 passengers this Monday and Tuesday.
These are just a warmup to a month in which tourists from luxury cruise ships are expected to fill the city, its bars, restaurants and shops and provide a great economic push to the port city, bringing tourists with greater purchasing power.
Additionally, five cruise ships will visit Cartagena for the first time ever, including the Viking Saturn from Viking Ocean Cruises; Carnival Glory. Seven double stopovers are expected throughout the month, as well as a triple stopover on April 28.
In the week of April 22-28, no fewer than seven different small luxury vessels are set to visit Cartagena – the Seven Seas Grandeur, Sea Cloud Spirit, Emeral Sakara, Wind Spirit, Star Clipper, Scenic Eclipse and Le Champlain.
Cartagena is seeing this type of luxury and ultraluxury cruises grow year on year. By the end of 2024, 72 of the 150 planned cruise stopovers in the city will be of the luxury sort, so almost half. This is partly thanks to a concerted effort on the part of the City Council to attract this tourist segment, but could also point to growing wealth inequality between the megarich and the middle classes.
Other Spanish cities, such as Palma de Mallorca, have complained of overcrowding due to too many cruise ships arriving, while Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga and Seville are all looking at ways to limit Airbnbs and other tourist lets forcing up rental prices.
For the relatively little-visited historical city of Cartagena, however, the controlled growth in this specific sector of cruise tourism is claimed to be a good thing as luxury and ultraluxury tourism could be a major boost to the local economy.
According to data from the tourism sector, for every 24 passengers on luxury cruises, the equivalent of one full-time job is created and, on average, each passenger spends 660 euros in the destinations they visit during the course of a seven-day cruise. Specialists in the sale of these types of packages say that premium and luxury cruises are showing extraordinary strength and that last year all sales records were broken. Now, anticipated sales for this year are 50% higher than they were in 2023.
Forty percent of the tourism that Cartagena receives comes through its port and 95% of the cruise passengers stay in the city. The most visited places are the Roman Theatre Museum, the Roman Forum Quarter and the Castillo de la Concepción castle with its panoramic lift offering great views of the city.
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Image: Ayuntamiento de Cartagena
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