SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, March 8 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Federation of Businessmen of La Palma (Fedepalma), CEOE-Tenerife’s employer representative on the island, has shown its “surprise and astonishment” at what they consider a “new grievance” towards the port of Santa Cruz de La Palma and the entire business sector of the island with the cancellation of the stopover scheduled for March 24 of the mega cruise MSC Seaview.
Fedepalma has indicated in a note that this news has taken the entire island by surprise, since it was considered that the economic impact of the stopover of this ship could be very important for it. He adds that this fact has left many establishments from different sectors such as commercial, catering, leisure, tourist, taxis or cultural spaces in all the municipalities of La Palma without the possibility of obtaining the necessary economic income to recover their normal rhythm after the volcanic eruption. .
The Federation has indicated that 5,429 passengers come on this ship, plus 1,413 crew members, who could have gotten off at the port to enjoy the island and its characteristics, since “from the time of arrival until the time of departure, the visitors would have filled the streets of many municipalities and would have brought economic benefits to businesses, and it was also the first port they arrived at after embarking on a journey from Brazil”.
From Fedepalma they assure that this decision is not understood “which seriously harms the island, for the benefit of Tenerife and without defending the interests of our port, and even more so, when it is reported by the same authority, that it has been an MSC decision for a breakdown when the ship has not even left the port of Maceio (Brazil) yet”.
The Federation commented that on March 28, 2022, the MSC Seaside was scheduled to dock with 5,333 cruise passengers and 1,413 crew members on the island of La Palma, precisely the first stop from Rio de Janeiro, and as now, the ship canceled its docking in La Palma, reporting on that occasion that it was due to technical reasons. “Now it is worth asking the port authority if they are the same or if there is some type of interest that is not being clarified so that La Palma can be the first port of arrival for these ships with all that this entails,” they add.
For the Federation, “the constant disregard that is being carried out by the Port Authority to our island and, specifically to Santa Cruz de La Palma, favoring the capital island in every way, gives a lot to think about and they consider that It is a point that should be discussed and duly exposed and defended by the island representatives in the aforementioned body and where our island has two representatives”.
He considers that the port of La Palma “must be one of the strong bets to be able to recover the economic rhythm of the island and situations like this, what they do is leave us aside, preventing us from being the first port of call for a mega ship of these characteristics”.
