The Emirate is a booming cruise centre in the Arab world It is the home harbour of numerous cruise shipping companies in the region
Dubai is one of the most rapidly growing destinations of the international cruise industry. The Emirate has managed to firmly establish itself in the cruise liner calendar of the major renowned shipping companies within the shortest space of time. They value, as do their passengers, the outstanding infrastructure of the Dubai cruise terminal and the Emirate, as well as the numerous excursion options in Dubai. A lot of travelers combine their cruise with an exciting city trip of several days’ duration in the mega metropolis.
Dubai’s rise to the status of the most popular cruise destination in the Arab world began some 10 years ago when – following the opening of the Dubai Cruise Terminal in 2001 – the first luxury liners stopped off in the Emirate en route to Asia or Europe. In Dubai, Aida and Costa Crociere placed ships in the region for single week cruises during the winter season from December to the spring for the first time in 2006. Both shipping companies have very successful developed and extended these trips. The “Brilliance of the Seas” of Royal Caribbean International has also regularly been docking here since 2010. Two additional ships which want to use Dubai as a base port in the form of “Mein Schiff 2” of TUI Cruises and the “FTI Berlin” of FTI Cruises will follow in 2012.
The Emirates Palace Hotel
The number of passengers at the Dubai cruise terminal is also increasing in line with the increasing level of interest of the shipping companies. Whilst the number of passengers on cruise ships was only 396,500 with 108 ships docking at the port in 2011, the figure is expected to increase to some 420,000 passengers in 2012. By 2015 the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM), the operator of the terminal, anticipates up to 500,000 passengers and 145 cruise ships will make Dubai their port of call in 2015. Dubai has the required capacities to cope with this and impressively demonstrated this when it easily handled one of the largest cruise ships in the world, the “Voyager of the Sea” of Royal Caribbean International, with 3,840 passengers on board, on 15 May. Only a few weeks prior to this five cruise ships docked into the port within a day for the first time in Dubai’s history. The advance of the Emirate en route to becoming the centre of cruise tourism in the Middle East has been remarkable.
