With more than 4.4 million passengers, an increase of 19% since 2019 (before the COVID crisis), the Mediterranean Sea is the world's second largest cruise destination after the Caribbean (CLIA, 2022). However, the situation is mixed and in transition. In many tourist ports such as Venice, Marseille and Barcelona, the cruise sector has been criticised by civil society and associations for its impact on society and above all on the environment and health. Faced with this criticism, local authorities often reacted by limiting the number of calls per day or by developing facilities such as dockside connections. However, the reduction in the number of ports of call may be offset by the increase in the size of cruise ships and the postponement of calls to secondary ports. The Mediterranean cruise market thus seems to be spreading to new, smaller ports. But if we observe a redistribution of calls from the major ports to the smaller ones, the question is to know what the consequences are, not only in terms of interdependence between city-ports, but also in terms of negative externalities. To answer this question, we are proposing to use AIS (Automatic Identification System) message. The aim of this paper will be to establish an overview of the development of the cruise market in the Mediterranean since 2013 and to analyse the changing role of small ports in the economic model of the cruise market. Secondly, we will analyse the impact of the cruise industry in terms of atmospheric emissions.