The Port of Barcelona's Board of Directors resumed this Wednesday the call for a public tender to award the construction and operation of the seventh cruise terminal. This is the last pending piece to complete the transfer of all cruise activity to the Moll Adossat, the furthest from the city.
The Port Authority of Barcelona (APB) has reported that two companies are interested in this new terminal, also known as terminal G. Specifically, they are Catalonia Cruise Terminal C, belonging to the Royal Caribbean group, and a joint initiative of Norwegian Cruise Line, Viking Ocean Cruises, and Virgin Cruises. The tender had been approved in November 2022, but had to be withdrawn last March due to an appeal filed by the latter three shipping companies.
The future terminal will have a concession area of more than 54,000 square meters and a 450-meter quay line, where cruise ships up to 400 meters in length can be parked. All these characteristics are included in the tender specifications, which also state that the successful bidder will have to provide significant homeport traffic, that is, with passenger embarkation and disembarkation, considering that this is what generates the most added value for the city. According to the port, currently homeport cruise passengers represent 58% of the total.
Other conditions of the tender include the implementation of services that facilitate passenger mobility, with an example being a bus service connecting the terminal with El Prat Airport or Sants Station. With the port's ongoing electrification plan in mind, it is also determined that all ships built after 2010 must be able to connect to the grid when docking, in addition to being able to be supplied with liquefied natural gas (LNG).
The limitation to seven cruise terminals, all located in the Moll Adossat, is one of the points included in the agreement signed in early 2018 by the then president of the Port of Barcelona, Sixte Cámara, and the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau. The agreement contemplates a series of actions that are expected to be completed by 2028 and that will improve the integration of the port into the city, with the disappearance of the current North and South terminals of the World Trade Center (WTC) and the opening of this space to citizens.
Despite the agreement five years ago, the previous municipal government asked not to build the new cruise terminal to reduce the impact of this activity on the city and its metropolitan area, in addition to not renewing the authorization for terminal C, bringing the total to five terminals. The debate about cruises has been reignited every year for summers in the Catalan capital, between defenders of the economic value they bring and detractors of the tourist pressure and pollution they entail.