How cruise passengers walk in Barcelona

The question

How do independent transit cruise passengers visiting Barcelona move on foot, which walking profiles can be distinguished, and how do these profiles relate to visit characteristics and to how the experience is perceived (heat, benches, crowding, satisfaction)?

The method

GPS tracking (one logger per group, one point every 15 s) and a post-visit questionnaire covering 793 independent transit cruise passengers, collected at the port of Barcelona on 39 days between July and October 2022. Walking indicators computed from the tracks, clustering with Gaussian mixture models (5 profiles), binary logistic regressions and Kruskal-Wallis tests on perceptions.

What the study finds

47.6%of time away from port spent on foot (median)Walking fills about half of the visit: for the typical passenger in the sample, 47.6% of the time spent away from the port is on foot (median value).

297.5 minmedian GPS-recorded visit lengthThe median GPS-recorded visit lasts 297.5 minutes; net of the 30-40 minute round trip to the terminal, the effective time in the city is just over 4 hours.

≈ 4.7 kmmedian farthest walking distance from the terminalWalking happens within a short radius: the farthest point reached on foot lies a median of about 4.7 km from the terminal.

71.9%of participants use the terminal shuttleThe terminal shuttle is the main way to reach the city from the port, used by 71.9% of participants; its end stop at the start of La Rambla thus becomes the shared starting point of visits.

The analysis distinguishes five walking profiles; the largest group is the 'average walkers' (34.7% of the sample), while those who barely walk make up only 4.5%. 'Extreme walkers' account for 17%.
Which profile a visitor falls into depends mainly on what they do during the visit (transport used, activities) rather than on personal traits. For instance, taking the hop-on hop-off sightseeing bus is associated with roughly 25 times higher odds of being a 'selective walker'.
Satisfaction with the visit is high and similar across all profiles (4.4 to 4.6 out of 5), whereas the feeling that some places were too crowded to enjoy differs significantly between profiles (average scores from 3.1 to 3.6).

From the study's figures

Sample GPS tracks: on the left, sections walked and sections travelled by transport; on the right, stops and movement.
Figure from Delclòs-Alió, X.; Arias-Sans, A.; Tavafi, F. et al. (2025), CC BY 4.0 licence.

Where cruise passengers' walking concentrates, for each of the five profiles identified by the study.
Figure from Delclòs-Alió, X.; Arias-Sans, A.; Tavafi, F. et al. (2025), CC BY 4.0 licence.

Why it matters for ports and cities

For independent cruise visitors the city is explored mostly on foot and within a few hours, with strong concentration along a few central corridors. Decisions on shuttle drop-off points, shade, seating, wayfinding and alternative routes directly affect both visitor experience and pressure on public spaces shared with residents.

Limitations

Only independent transit cruise passengers, a single city and a single post-COVID season (2022, with a lower-than-usual share of US passengers); the speed/distance thresholds used to define walking and the self-reported data may introduce inaccuracies.

Full reference and source

Delclòs-Alió, X., Arias-Sans, A., Tavafi, F., Mejía, V., Catalán, M., Gutiérrez, A. (2025). Stepping on the beaten track? Walking behavior and profiles of cruise passengers in Barcelona. Cities, vol. 159, 105760 (Elsevier).

Read the original study ↗

Summary written by the ODYBOAT Observatory in our own words. Tables and figures belong to the authors.