Mohit Rathod – Mumbai
The Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing, Government of Dubai is promoting the emirate’s cruise offerings in the India market. The cruise tourism department of Dubai Tourism recently conducted a six-city road show to tap the cruise segment. The cruise tourism road show, which was started last year with three cities, was expanded to six cities this year – Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Kolkata. Jamal Humaid al Falasi, director, cruise tourism, Dubai Tourism, is optimistic about the growth in cruise tourists from India due to the inclusion of more cities this year. He said, “We find big demand from Indian travel agents to sell Dubai’s cruise offerings. We conduct the road show mainly in India, because we find huge demand from the India market. Through cruises, travellers can visit three countries – Oman, Bahrain and Qatar. Most of the ships can accommodate MICE events, so we are also promoting MICE segment, alongside leisure. However, leisure is doing well than MICE at present.”
In 2015, India was the number one source market for cruise tourism in Dubai. Additionally, India is the fastest growing source market in overall tourism in Dubai, with 26 per cent year-on-year growth. On global basis, the emirate generated US$ 30 billion through annual sales in the cruise segment in 2015. The cruise department aims to reach one million cruise tourists by 2020.
“The response from India has been good. We have seen good progress since we started our road show last year. We have introduced multiple-entry cruise visa, which is exclusively for cruise tourists, which is a great news for India. We see a lot of response from the Tier II cities as well,” stated Suresh Babu Balan, manager, cruise tourism, Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing. Adding to that, Carl Vaz, director Dubai representative office in India, Dubai Tourism, commented, “The response from other cities, along with the key cities of Mumbai and Delhi, has been exceptionally good. We are interacting with travel trade to have more promotions.”
Currently, seven cruise lines operate in Dubai which include Costa Cruises, MSC Cruises, Royal Caribbean, TUI Cruises, AIDA Cruises and Thomson Cruises. Kunal Sampat, general manager – India, MSC Cruises, informed, “Cruising numbers are growing not just from India, but globally. Until last year, we had MSC Musica in the UAE waters, but due to the growing demand, this year we have introduced another ship – MSC Fantasia in the region. Dubai has been popular for MICE and we promote MICE on our cruises, as Dubai has seamless connectivity with India.”
The cruise department is planning to study the demand from the India market and include more target cities in the market, alongside working with more cruise lines.
