There's nothing the island's restaurant owners and shopkeepers like to see better than boatloads of visitors with wedges of cash coming in their way. Cruise ship passengers and yacht owners are reputedly quite liberal when it comes to chucking money in the direction of our tertiary sector so they should be pleased to here that 2005 looks like being better than ever.
Despite 2004 being a record breaking year with over 80,000 cruise ship passengers, provisions for this year show a 19% increase in the number of cruisers booked to berth here. In the private sector boat owners always have difficulty mooring in high summer yet the tourist authorities are active in Düsseldorf at the moment trying to attract yet more nautical coves.
After all, there are seven new sports marinas planned and they're hoping for some spin off when the America's Cup is held in nearby Valencia in a couple of years.
