Dubai Tourism is ready to jump on to the cruise industry’s bandwagon by getting all braced up to draw in 20 million tourists by the year 2020.
In the year 2016 to 2017, Dubai had been able to attract 625,000 tourists.
In the last 10 years, the number of cruise travellers arriving in Dubai has increased by six times from a humble 105,000 visitors during 2006 to 2007, as per the officials from Dubai Tourism. The cruise tourism sector had witnessed a robust growth of 16 to 18% for last year and it is expected that this growth would be sustained since it has been luring an overwhelming number of visitors, particularly from India.
Dubai feels that India is one of its leading source nations in terms of its cruise tourism as the number of Indian tourists increased by 25% last year.
In the year 2017 to 2018, it is expected to grow by 30%.
Jamal Humaid Al Falasi who is the Director of Cruise Tourism, Dubai Tourism said that India is the 4th top source country after the other important nations like the US, UL, Italy and Germany who send their tourists to Dubai. He mentioned his confidence about the fact that Dubai has immense potential that is enough to lure at least 20 million cruise tourists by 2020.
Falasi was in Ahmedabad in India, accompanied by other officials from Dubai Tourism for a roadshow aiming to promote cruise tourism in Dubai.
The Dubai Cruise 2017 to 2018 season commences from 25th October and Seabourn Encore would be arriving there shortly. Dubai Cruise has also declared that P&O Cruises would be the home for porting in Dubai for the first time during the 2018 to 2019 season.
