Tourism in the shadow of volcanoes and palm trees. The most ecological port in Madeira
By Marek Grzybowski
The Cruise Atlantic Islands (CAI) recorded its best year ever in terms of passenger traffic in 2024. The organization’s tour operators welcomed more than four million passengers in ports for the first time since its creation in 1994. CAI is the collective brand of the International Association of Macaronesian Islands Ports. The organization brings together the ports of the Azores, the Canary Islands (Las Palmas and Tenerife), Cape Verde and Madeira.
The term Macaronesia comes from two Greek words macaroni, meaning blessed or happy, and nesoi, meaning an island or group of islands. The full translation is Blessed or Fortunate Islands. This terminology was first used by botanists, specifically Philip Barker Webb, in the mid-19th century, and has since spread to other fields that have little to do with science, explains the Macaronesian.org portal.
– The Cruise Atlantic Islands organization closed the year with a total of 4,179,673 passengers served – the CAI managers calculated precisely. This means that the number of tourists on the Atlantic islands increased by 25.52% during the year compared to the previous year. In 2024, passenger traffic provided almost 3,300 thousand sea tourists in the ports of these island countries. This is the result of the extraordinary activity of passenger ship operators. The upward trend observed since 2023 translated into the number of cruise calls. In 2023, ships with passengers curious about life in Macaronesia docked 1,609 times, and in 2024 they brought sea tourists exactly 2,043 times.
This result consists of successes achieved in all ports of Mycornesia. For example, the Port of Funchal in Madeira received 700 thousand passengers last year, setting a record. This result significantly exceeds the previous record, which was over 624 thousand passengers in 2023. In 2024, the port of Funchal was honored with an award as the best cruise terminal in the world. The World Cruise Awards were awarded for the sustainable development of the port. In the previous two years, 2022 and 2023, Madeira was honored with the so-called “Cruise Oscars” for the best European cruise destination.
Macaronesia in a nutshell
Macaronesia consists of 40 islands and islets with an area of more than 1 km2. They are located in a large body of water in the Atlantic, west of the Iberian Peninsula and the northwestern corner of Africa. The islands are located in the ocean in the latitude range from 14.8°N to 39.7°N.
Such a location means that tourists can encounter a very diverse climate system here – points out José María Fernández-Palacios, a researcher of this region, in the study “The islands of Macaronesia,” published in Terrestrial Arthropods of Macaronesia. Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution, edition: (Lisboa: Sociedade Portuguesa de Entomología).
In Macaronesia, we can find weather variations from a temperate oceanic climate in the Azores, to a Mediterranean climate in Madeira, Selvagens and the Canary Islands, and a warm, dry climate in the Cape Verde Islands. The age structure of these volcanic islets is also interesting.
– The geological age of the existing islands and islets ranges from less than 35,000 years for Alegranza in the Canary Islands to 25.7 million years (Ma) for Selvagem Grande. However, the seamounts around Madeira and the Canary Islands are 67 million years old (Gettysburg near Madeira), which indicates that Macaronesia is at least two or three times older than its oldest emergent landmass – explains Fernández-Palacios.
A paradise for explorers
He points out that the islands of Macaronesia exhibit contrasting levels of geographic isolation from the mainland, ranging from 96 km from North Africa (Fuerteventura, Canary Islands) to over 1,500 km (Flores, Azores) from the Iberian Peninsula. The boundaries of Macaronesia in the maritime sphere differ slightly, since Cabo Verde is described as belonging to another province, while the rest of the archipelagos are included in the province of Lusitanian.
Because of the endemic species found here, visiting Micronesia can be interesting for tourists interested in biology. And exploration cruises are becoming increasingly popular. In general, endemism is particularly noticeable in the terrestrial environment of the islands. There are vascular plants, land snails and arthropods. A particularly unusual and rich living environment is the significant percentage of endemic species of terrestrial mollusks, which reaches over 41% in the Azores (potentially close to 91% if colonization status is assigned to all species) and Cabo Verde, over 84% in Madeira and over 94% in the Canary Islands – lists Margarita Florencio in a study carried out together with an international team entitled “Macaronesia as a Fruitful Arena for Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology”.
Despite its small area, Selvagens is inhabited by over 50 endemic species (over 15% of the total number of native species), sharing other endemisms with various archipelagos of Macaronesia. In the Canary Islands, the level of endemism reaches 66% of spiders and 100% of reptiles. Almost 50% of the Canary Islands’ plant species are endemic, Reyes-Betancort reports in “Diversity, rarity and the evolution and conservation of the Canary Islands endemic flora.”
More than 70% of reptiles are considered endemic to a single island. Snails are an exception to this trend, especially in Cape Verde, where the number of endemic species is more than 44% of all native species, most of which are endemic to Cape Verde.
Macaronesia as a brand
However, the Macaronesian Islands are not an easy-to-sell brand. Local organizations have taken maritime tourism seriously as a good tourist product. Extensive actions have been taken to exceed the magic 4 million tourists using ships. Two key factors have been focused on, which have interested tour operators in this region.
– The first and most important is the extensive promotional work undertaken to position this Atlantic corridor as an attractive destination for operators organizing cruises – informs the management of CAI. These activities were supported by high quality of tourist service and the diversity of the offer and the possibility of using different route variants. The second factor was the inclusion of the Azores in CAI in 2023. This contributed to an increase in ship calls by 175 entries and an increase in the number of passengers by over 152 thousand.
It is emphasized that “Even without taking into account the contribution of the Azores, the growth of the CAI remains extraordinary: a 20.95% increase in the number of passengers (4,027,518) and a 16.09% increase in the number of ship calls (1,868)”. This is the result of extensive promotional work to rebuild the market after the Covid-19 pandemic. It is noted that it was achieved “by exceeding the numbers of 2019, the last year before the pandemic, when the threshold of three million passengers was reached for the first time”
Ahead of the conference to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the creation of the CAI, Paula Cabaço, General Manager of Ports of Madeira, said: “This will be an opportunity to pay tribute to all these people of great value and vision, to whom the cruise market in the Macaronesian region owes a lot. They have proven that only through cooperation can we consolidate our position in a global and competitive industry such as cruises”.
The CAI held its first meeting on September 19, 1984 in Funchal. It was attended by managers from the maritime and port authorities of Madeira and the Canary Islands. The 2024 conference commemorated this initiative with a conversation with the participants of the founding meeting: Juan Francisco Martin, former Commercial Director of Ports of the Canary Islands; João Reis, former President of APRAM; Michael Blandy, former CEO of Blandy Group; Eduardo Alvarez Hamilton, former CEO of Hamilton & CO in the Canary Islands. The meeting was also attended by Franklim Spencer, former President of Ports of Cape Verde and Pedro Roque, former President of the Port Authority of Tenerife.
Cruise Atlantic Islands was founded in 1994 through a joint initiative and effort by the port authorities of Madeira and the Canary Islands. The organization expanded in 2006 with the inclusion of Cape Verde. In 2023, the ports of the Azores decided to join the CAI.
Sea tourists as a source of port profits
The announcement emphasizes that “In an increasingly competitive and global cruise industry, CAI represents a market of 4.2 million tourists, positioning itself as a distinct product based on the unique but complementary identities of the Atlantic islands of Macaronesia.”
According to CLIA (Cruise Lines International Association), an organization that brings together most cruise operators, the CAI market in 2023 accounted for 2.3% of the global cruise passenger market. These figures may be revised upwards this year. It can be considered a remarkable success that a once marginal market has found its place and recognition from global players.
One of the beneficiaries of the dynamic growth of the Macaronesian market is Global Ports Holding. In fiscal year 2024, Holding reported net income of $10.3 million on adjusted revenue of $172.7 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024. The previous fiscal year ended with a net loss of $10.5 million on sales of services of $117.2 million. Global Ports Holding achieved a good result in fiscal year 2024 thanks to serving 13.4 million passengers in 31 ports operated by Holding, compared to 9.2 million in fiscal year 2023.
Global Ports Holding generated 36% of its revenue from sales of services in the Americas, while 23% was generated from passenger services in ports in the Western Mediterranean and Atlantic. 20% of revenue was generated in ports in the Mediterranean and Adriatic, 13% was generated in ports located in the central Mediterranean and Northern Europe, and 10% from other port services.
Based on the results signaled in 2024, it can be assumed that the financial year ending in 2025 with revenues higher by about 20%. The management of Global Ports Holding assumed in 2024 that during the new financial year until March 31, 2025, the company could handle 16 million passengers.
Global Ports Holding generates its revenues mainly from port terminal services, mooring and pilotage and towing, as well as from auxiliary services such as transshipment and waste disposal, destination and shore services, area and terminal management, and crew services.
There is a strong competitive struggle in the global tourism market and local tourism organizations together with port authorities are fighting for every ship entry and every sea tourist. Each type of service related to serving tourists on passenger ships brings measurable revenues to port authorities and port cities. Organized and comprehensive promotion brings specific image and business effects. It is often the tourists who arrive on ships who create a good reputation for ports and port cities, which translates into business results. It is therefore worth fighting for every percent of the market.