SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Nov 9 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Port Authority of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the Government of the Canary Islands and the Cabildo de La Palma have activated a working group with the aim of promoting the arrival of cruise ships to the island, insisting on the message that La Palma is a safe island despite the eruption of the volcano.
This group, gathered yesterday for the first time via streaming, is made up of the Ports of Tenerife, the Government of the Canary Islands through the Ministry of Tourism, the Cabildo de La Palma, international cruise shipping companies, representatives of the associations that group them. and the company organizing the excursions on La Palma.
This first meeting was attended by the Minister of Tourism of the Government of the Canary Islands, Yaiza Castilla; the president of the Cabildo de La Palma, Mariano H. Zapata; the Minister of Tourism of La Palma, Raúl Camacho; the director of the International Cruise Lines Association (CLIA) in Spain, Alfredo Serrano, and twenty-two other professionals representing up to seven cruise lines, including Carnival Cruises, Aida, TUI, Costa Cruises, Saga Cruises and Virgin Voyages. and the palm-tree port community itself.
All of them insisted, when asked by the shipping companies, on the security offered by the island of La Palma to serve this type of tourism that, far from being affected by the volcano eruption, can find in it a new attraction to enjoy with full guarantee.
The president of the Ports of Tenerife, Carlos González, indicated that the port of Santa Cruz de La Palma is a facility in which port services “continue to be provided with full guarantee and that it is far from the area directly affected by the eruption.” . He insisted that it is essential to create a common front to make shipping companies aware that La Palma continues to be a safe island.
For its part, Yaiza Castilla conveyed to the attendees the support and total willingness of the Government of the Canary Islands to promote this tourism in La Palma, while showing a special interest in knowing the possibilities offered by shipping companies to expand the capacity to 100% of its cruises, currently capped at 75% by COVID-19 control measures.
For his part, Mariano H. Zapata assured that cruise ship tourism “plays a very important role in the recovery of La Palma, an island where they will find a safe and referential destination”. Likewise, he alluded to the volcano as a new attraction for tourists, an aspect in which he agreed with María José Blanco, head of the National Geographic Institute in the Canary Islands, who alluded to the existence of a “volcanic tourism” that travels the world and now shows on La Palma.
Taking into account that only between 8-9% of the surface of La Palma is in the exclusion zone, the spokesperson for Intercruises on the Island, Samuel Hernández, guaranteed the organization of excursions to practically the entire island, obviously excepting the area exclusion from the volcano, always under the appropriate security measures and following the recommendations of the local authorities.
Some areas of the island, such as the Tajuya viewpoint, in the municipality of El Paso, and the El Time viewpoint, in Tijarafe, continue to be the best places for cruise passengers to enjoy the spectacular image that it continues to offer, through all those who come to La Palma, the volcano.
Puertos de Tenerife has made available to interested shipping companies an email in which they can raise doubts about the eruptive situation, this being [email protected].
