Italian shipowner group Grimaldi's Trasmed shipping company has unveiled its new “TrasmedWeekend” initiative, under which passengers who on weekends from next June 27 will use the company's ferry service connecting Valencia with Ibiza will be able to spend the weekend aboard the ship, benefiting from various services, including cabin cleaning, breakfast and access to the swimming pool. The initiative will run until the end of September for a total of 14 weekends, and the company has announced that it is considering extending it to the Barcelona-Minorca route as well. The announcement aroused the ire of the Ibiza Island Council, which denounced as unacceptable for a shipping company to extend its activities by operating a “clandestine hotel” in the port of Ibiza. “In addition,” stressed the island's governing body, “we are living in a moment of great social sensitivity because of the damage generated by unregulated tourism”. The council believes that a ferry with a capacity of 1,252 passengers, 207 cabins and 647 seats, “is totally unsuitable for an island like Ibiza”. Trasmed retorts that overnight accommodation on board the ship is not comparable to a land-based hotel offering. The port authority will now decide.