It is a notably better performance than the province as a whole managed. Across the three state run ports handling cruise traffic in Las Palmas, the combined total was 1,300,770 passengers, a rise of 9.63 per cent, meaning Arrecife now accounts for more than 30 per cent of all the Port Authority's cruise business.
The city's mayor, Yonathan de León, put the growth down to the council's push to establish Arrecife as a home port rather than simply a stop on the way to somewhere else, and said cruise lines are showing more interest in using it both as a turnaround port and as a regular call on Canary Islands and West African itineraries. A turnaround port is where a cruise actually begins and ends, with passengers flying in to join the ship, which is worth considerably more to the local economy than a few hours ashore.
A row over where the money goes
The record numbers come with a complaint attached. De León has criticised the Port Authority's business plan for 2027, arguing that Arrecife is being handed a share of investment that bears little relation to what it now brings in.
The numbers he points to are certainly stark. Of the €230 million set aside for port construction across the province next year, a little over €2 million is earmarked for Arrecife, while €131 million is planned for projects in Gran Canaria including dock expansions, extra berthing capacity and improvements to bunkering facilities. The mayor has asked for that to be revisited, noting that around 20 per cent of the city's waterfront sits inside state owned port land managed by the authority, and arguing that funding ought to reflect what the port contributes to the island and the wider region.
The Port Authority has its own priorities to balance across several islands, and how it divides its budget is a long running discussion rather than something that will be settled by one set of figures. What is not in dispute is that Arrecife is handling a lot more ships than it used to.
There is an interesting contrast buried in all this. Over the same six months, passenger numbers through Lanzarote's airport slipped by around one per cent, part of a small dip across the Canaries as a whole. So while the island's air traffic has levelled off after several years of strong growth, arrivals by sea have gone the other way and grown sharply. Whether that shift continues is worth watching, not least because cruise passengers and holidaymakers on a fortnight in a resort spend their money in very different ways.
