The mayor of Arrecife, Yonathan de León, and his counterpart in Puerto del Rosario, David de Vera, have sealed an alliance to boost both cities as cruise destinations.
De León and De Vera held a meeting during **Fitur** in Madrid to establish close collaboration and a common roadmap for their proposals to the **Port Authority of Las Palmas** (APLP), a state entity of which both mayors are members of the Board of Directors of the Port Authority of Las Palmas.
The sum of cruise passengers during 2025, in the ports of Arrecife and Puerto del Rosario, accounted for 52% of all cruise passengers in the Ports of Las Palmas.
During the past year the province of Las Palmas received the visit of 2,089,042 cruise passengers, of which 1,094,088 were on the islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, through the ports of Arrecife and Puerto del Rosario. La Luz and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria had a volume of 994,954.
The Mayor of Puerto del Rosario, David de Vera, has stated that "The union between Puerto del Rosario and Arrecife is today a key factor in understanding the development and consolidation of cruise tourism in the province of Las Palmas. Through collaboration and joint work, both capitals are demonstrating that Fuerteventura and Lanzarote play a fundamental strategic role within the provincial port system."
For his part, Yonathan de León, **mayor of Arrecife**, pointed out that both island capitals, in Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, "have an economic strength in cruise tourism and will continue to grow more in this next five-year period, as predicted by the shipping companies. If we contribute more than 50 percent of the income generated by these passengers to the Puertos de Las Palmas entity, we must be reciprocated with investments and improvements in our port facilities, with the same magnitude of importance."
In this meeting held in Madrid, both capital city mayors were accompanied by their respective Tourism councilors: Rosa Rodríguez (Puerto del Rosario) and Eli Merino (Arrecife).
In addition to promoting joint actions as cruise destination cities in the Canary Islands circuits, it was agreed that the respective Tourism Departments of both city councils, on the islands with a strong tourist presence in the Canary Islands, would plan joint actions for the benefit of both capitals and islands.
De León and De Vera have agreed to hold a new meeting soon in Arrecife to "work on new actions and strategies that strengthen both cities with the importance of their state ports for tourism, trade, and the economy of both islands".
