Mallorca attracts millions of travellers by boat and plane every year, but tourists on cruise ships may soon be hit by new restrictions.
Luxury liners entering Mallorca may be subjected to a Venice-style ban as part of an initiative to limit the number of visitors on the island, it has been revealed.
The Committee on Tourism, Trade, Employment, Culture and Sport, has already approved plans to reintroduce a cap on cruise ships entering Mallorca's capital of Palma.
A limit on the number of large cruise ships entering the popular holiday destination would help locals deal with the saturation of tourism, authorities have declared.
The cruise ship ban would help Mallorca deal with the saturation of tourism
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The Balearic Government hopes to reach an agreement with cruise lines and shipping agents to reduce the number of vessels entering Palma's docks.
The plans have yet to be signed off by the Balearic Islands Port Authority (APB) and Palma City Council before coming into effect.
A previous agreement was made with the Balearic Government to regulate the number of cruise ships entering Palma in May 2022, which saw a daily limit of three ship arrivals implemented.
In October, the Majorca Daily Bulletin reported that eight business organisations had called on authorities to scrap the curb on cruise ships after suffering an 18 per cent fall in passengers.
“Don’t demonise cruise ship passengers, it is family tourism with a high spending power,” they said in a statement.
The plans have been compared to a ban implemented in Venice in 2021, that stopped vessels from anchoring in the city's docks.
The plans were introduced following complaints that big ships caused pollution and eroded the foundations of the city, which already contends with regular flooding.
According to data gathering specialists at Statista, the volume of cruise tourism at Palma surpassed two million travellers in 2023.
"In 2022, there were approximately 1.37 million cruise passengers transiting through the port of Palma de Mallorca," according to the website.
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Several cities across Spain have introduced new bans to combat the saturation of tourism
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"The number of cruise passengers who disembarked or transited at the Port of Palma plunged by more than 90 per cent in 2020 as a result of COVID-19 impact on tourism."
Several cities across Spain have imposed bans and taxes to combat the ever-growing influx of visitors.
Locals in Seville have launched a petition calling for stricter controls on ‘toxic’ tourism in the hotspot.
The Canary Islands have also seen a wave of anti-tourism protests call for an urgent rethink of tourism strategies.