A broad range of cruise sector leaders and public sector personalities gathered in the port of Palamós for the first Costa Brava Cruise Symposium earlier this week.
With the overall participation by some 100 attendees and the quality of presentations and discussion being highly satisfactory, conference participants extracted valuable conclusions on the propsects of cruise activities for smaller in size cruise ports and beyond.
Ports de la Generalitat is the regional government unit responsible for 45 ports along the Catalan coast, excluding only Barcelona and Tarragona, which are managed by the Spanish national government’s Puertos del Estado. Among the regional ports, Palamós and Roses on the Costa Brava and Sant Carles ce la Ràpita, near the Ebro Delta, are active in the cruise sector.
María Cano Olmos, who heads cruise activities for Ports de la Generalitat de Catalunya and acts as MedCruise director for Marketing, expressed her satisfaction for the input that the Symposium will have to the development of the ports strategy.
The Symposium, moderated by Juan Madrid, ceo of consultants Barcelona Port Advisers and honorary president of MedCruise, who tackled issues related to the role of small cruise ports in the Mediterranean Sea, with timely input from Marcy Sarich, hotel manager of Island Escape, which was docked at Palamós within easy view of participants. MedCruise president Carla Salvado from the Port of Barcelona was a keynote speaker.
The cruise industry, a major opportunity for coastal economies, led off with data presented by Alfredo Serrano, national director of CLIA Spain and regional and international cooperation. A key element for success, included remarks by Jaume Marin, marketing manager for the Costa Brava Tourism Board.
Palamós holds the distinction of being the city with fewer than 25,000 inhabitants with the highest number of cruise passengers in the Mediterranean, 38,612 this year.
