Carnival to Operate Santa Cruz de Tenerife Cruise Terminal in Canary Islands

Cruise company Carnival Corporation will become the first concession-holder to operate the Canary Islands’ and Mid Atlantic’s newest cruise terminal.

The company signed a concession agreement with the Port Authority of Santa Cruz de Tenerife following a Board of Directors meeting.

“This concession and our ongoing investment is part of Carnival Corporation’s long-term strategy to continue to develop the cruise industry in the Canary Islands,” Giora Israel, senior vice president of global port and destination development for Carnival Corporation, said.

Opened in 2016, the terminal will be the first in the Canaries to accommodate Carnival’s next-generation green cruise ships powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG). It will welcome AIDAnova, a newbuilding operated by Carnival’s Germany-based AIDA Cruises brand, on its maiden voyage in December as the world’s first cruise ship that can be powered by LNG both in port and at sea.

Welcoming 617,987 cruise passengers in 2017, Santa Cruz de Tenerife is one of the busiest cruise ports in the Canary Islands, the seven-island Spanish archipelago off the coast of Africa and Spain, and the first to attract an investment by a major cruise company.

Seven brands from Carnival Corporation – AIDA Cruises, Costa Cruises, Cunard, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, Seabourn and P&O Cruises UK – make port calls to Tenerife during the course of the year. Carnival Corporation expects to bring more than 300,000 passenger visits to the port in 2018 – half of all cruise passenger visits – with 130 calls by 31 different ships from the company’s cruise line brands.

“Thanks in large part to Carnival Corporation ships, the cruise market generated an economic impact to the Port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and the city of Santa Cruz of EUR 24 million (USD 27.1 million) in the 2018 cruise season, an increase of EUR 6m from the 2017 cruise season, and we look forward to continuing to share our beautiful island with visiting cruise passengers coming through this cruise terminal,” Pedro Suárez López de Vergara, president of the Port Authority of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, commented.

The Port Authority of Santa Cruz de Tenerife celebrates this long-term agreement with the aim of extending the benefits to its other ports – Santa Cruz de La Palma, San Sebastián de La Gomera, La Estaca in El Hierro and Los Cristianos in Tenerife.

“Our ports are performing very well in the cruise business – last year we received nearly 1 million cruise passengers and we are confident to increase this figure close to 2 percent in 2018. We expect the new partnership will boost the cruise business in the region,” de Vergara added.

Carnival Corporation also manages two other cruise terminals in Spain – the Helix and Palacruceros facilities in Barcelona.

The company currently has 11 LNG-powered ships on order for five of its nine cruise line brands, with the first ship, AIDAnova, scheduled to make its maiden call on Tenerife on December 18, 2018.