Costa Cruises has been handing out pamphlets to its customers, particularly on its liners Costa Diadema and Costa Fascinosa, which dock in the Catalan capital, warning them of civil unrest in the region.
The Italian company’s leaflet reads: “There can be demonstrations of political character announced with short notice or without prior notice”.
The leaflet, which is headed with the words “civil riots”, advises travellers to avoid getting involved in “large political concentrations in the vicinity of Government buildings, dependencies of the Security Forces and symbolic places”.
It also warns tourists not to visit “remote places or districts or buildings with restricted access”.
The pamphlet even says to follow the advices of the authorities and not to photograph demonstrators or the security forces “in order not to trigger violent reactions”.
A statement from the company said: “These tips are only a preventive measure that we have not taken only in Barcelona, but also in other destinations and ports around the world using information from different sources and agencies, and national and internationally relevant safety organisations, to appropriately inform passengers and crew of any potential risk, even when it is in a very dormant state.”
While some predictions have noted that the current political crisis in the Iberian country could have an impact on tourism, these appear to be unfounded so far.
Executor, an alliance of 23 companies that promote tourism in Spain, has predicted that tourism growth would fall this year from 4.1 per cent to 3.1 per cent this year due to the crisis.
But this is yet to materialise, with the latest report from the National Statistics Institute (INE) saying in its monthly report that nights in hotels set a new record in September with 6.66 million stays overnight in the region, a rise of 3.3 per cent.
This is above the average for the whole of Spain of 2.2 per cent.
Catalonia has been thrown into turmoil in recent weeks, most notably on October 1 when the region held a referendum on the issue of independence which was done in defiance of the central government in Madrid under Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy who deemed the vote illegal.
On the day of the vote there were scenes of police brutality, mainly in Barcelona as the Guardia Civil and the national police attempted to clampdown on the vote taking place and attempted to disperse crowds of people trying to vote by welding batons and firing rubber bullets into the crowds.
So far there have been mainly peaceful scenes on the streets of Barcelona with hundreds of thousands of Catalans attending a number of protests, mainly focused on the actions of Madrid and the likely imposition of Article 155 of the constitution allowing the central government to takeover the running of the semi-autonomous region.
While there have been occasional disturbances and video evidence of outbreaks of fighting, in particular the fight erupting outside the tourist hotspot of Cafe Zurich at the top of Las Ramblas, there have been unconfirmed reports that these are the actions of supporters of the far-right Falange who oppose Catalan independence.
Additional reporting by Maria Ortega