Currently, it is the sixth largest cruise port in the world.
Barcelona’s cruise ship port will close two of its existing terminals next year as part of the city’s plan to fight over tourism.
The Spanish port city currently operates seven cruise terminals, down from 10 after a 2018 agreement closed the closer-in Muelle Barcelona Norte docks to cruise traffic. That agreement also closed the Maremagnum cruise terminal and repurposed the location into a mixed-use entertainment district with a mall, bars, restaurants, and a marina.
The closures and renovations are part of a larger package of improvements totaling €185 million ($218 million). The three oldest terminals in the port are scheduled to be demolished next year and will be replaced by a single larger facility planned to open in 2033. Overall, the city aims to reduce cruise passenger throughput to 31,000 daily passengers by the end of the decade, down from the current 37,000.
The project is planned to reduce the environmental impact of cruising on the city by adding shore power, which allows cruise lines to essentially “plug in” the ships to local power sources while in port instead of burning their onboard fuel supply. Cruise lines pay local power providers for the energy, supporting local jobs, and often powering the ships with a greener power source than onboard fuel.
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The project also plans traffic corridor renovations to the Porta d’Europa bridge connecting the cruise terminals to the city, and the coastal thoroughfare in the area of the port. Traffic improvements will favor public transport, cyclists, and pedestrians in efforts to alleviate traffic related to cruise departures.
Barcelona is the busiest cruise port in Europe, and a popular port for cruise lines to embark and disembark passengers at the beginning or end of their cruise itineraries, and also for transit passengers visiting for the day. It’s those transit passengers, who don’t stay overnight and often don’t spend much in local businesses, but crowd popular visitor attractions like La Rambla and the Sagrada Familia Basilica, that irk local residents for creating congestion but contributing little to the city’s economy.
In the summer of 2024, Barcelona residents took to the streets with water guns, dousing patrons in hotels and restaurants suspected to be tourists in protest of the city’s overtourism woes. City residents have also pushed back on short-term rentals, which they say have limited housing availability and driven the price of residential rentals sky-high. Tourism has been blamed in part for housing shortages across Spain, including Málaga, Madrid, the Canary Islands, and the Balearic Islands.
That same summer, Barcelona quietly altered its tourism marketing, shifting from “Visit Barcelona” to “This is Barcelona,” ending its call for mass tourism and hoping to instead attract visitors specifically interested in the city’s history and culture. The Netherlands, another European capital grappling with the effects of overtourism, employed a similar strategy in 2019, shifting its tourism efforts from promoting the country as a visitor destination to managing the crowds already planning to visit.
Many cruise lines operate cruises to and through Barcelona, and some of the larger cruise lines operate their own terminals. Carnival Corporation, which also includes brands Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, Cunard, and Seabourn, owns and operates two terminals in the city. MSC Cruises also owns and operates a terminal as one of the homeports for its 6,700-passenger MSC World Europa, and other ships. Royal Caribbean International, which also includes Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises, is constructing a new terminal expected to open in 2027.
Around 3.7 million cruise passengers arrived in Barcelona last year, making it the sixth-largest cruise port in the world. Civitavecchia, Italy, near Rome, ranked just behind Barcelona with 3.4 million cruise passengers embarked.