Cruise traffic increases again throughout Portugal
Cruise traffic: The number of cruise passengers who entered Portuguese ports in 2017 increased by 5% over the previous year to 1.3 million. According to data from the Port of Lisbon, port administrations expect a new record to be reached in 2018.
The ports of Leixões, Lisbon, Setúbal, Portimão, Azores and Madeira are present at the Seatrade Cruise Global, the world’s largest cruise event that runs until Thursday in the United States, unified under the brand Cruise Portugal – APP, Ports of Portugal. The figures for 2017 demonstrate, according to the press release, that Lisbon leads this year in cruise traffic as the port with more stops, registering a movement of 330 cruise ships. Madeira (including Porto Santo), in turn, is the leader in the total number of passengers.
The numbers of visiting passengers is increasing probably because the ships are so much bigger. When I look at the port website for forthcoming visiting ships I see many days with no visiting ships but the visiting ships carry many thousands of pax as opposed to the hundreds on the past. Looking at June only one ship is due in, previous years had maybe 4 or 5 in June.