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Cruising may be a fledgling industry in India, but Indians are beginning to enjoy the view from the upper deck.
With stakeholders betting big on the Indian market, there is a sudden surge in Indian passengers boarding the luxury liners.
Industry sources reveal that 40% of the passengers who have booked a cruise from Mumbai are Indians.
This is indeed encouraging for an industry that remained in calm waters till recently.
According to Mumbai Port officials, 59 luxury liners will make a beeline to the port this season. Of these, 44 will be having ‘Port of Call ‘and the rest 15 ‘Turnaround Operation’.
Last year, Mumbai hosted 37 ships and 40 in the previous year. “Next year, we target to have a lakh passengers using the facilities from Mumbai, which means close to 100 cruise liners coming to Mumbai,” said Sanjay Bhatia, chairman of Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT)
According to cruise tourism players, India is still a late booking market, there are bookings coming in at the last minute, unlike the foreign crowd who prefer to plan out their holiday much in advance.
“Among Indian tourists, people from the western region, particularly Gujarat, are in a majority,” said Bhatia.
Per-person ticket to sail for a week on a luxury cruise liners is above Rs 60,000 to Rs 70,000 and do not include expenditures like casinos and alcohol, shopping on board or even visa fees while cabins facing the sea attract higher price tags.
“Mumbai is the main port city. If a ship comes here, it will sail to other coastal cities on the western coast,” said Gautam Dey, senior deputy traffic manager & business development, MbPT. The other cities include Cochin, New Mangalore, Goa and Chennai where luxury ships make an overnight halt.
After Mumbai, the gateway to India for cruise tourism, Cochin is the next big port. According to the data, the ongoing season has turned out to be excellent for Cochin Port. In 2016-17, there will be 47 ships that will berth at Cochin Port, making it the highest in last three years, a giant leap from 34 ships that visited in 2015-16 and 40 in the previous year.
The east coast, however, isn’t as active as the west coast. This year, only one cruise liner visited Chennai Port. The liner began sailing last month from Colombo (Sri Lanka), coming to Chennai and later heading to Port Blair (Andaman), Penang (Malaysia), Langkawi (Malaysia), Singapore and Yangon (Myanmar) for a fortnight trip.
During the ongoing season, there are sailings happening between Mumbai and Middle East – the ports being Abu Dhabi, Al Manamah, Doha, Dubai and Muscat.
The first ship to have Mumbai as its home port is Genting Dream, with another one — Costa neoClassica – all set to sail to Male, Maldives and back, after a week. “There is a mix of Indians and foreigners, in a 40:60 ratio, among those book for cruising. Our ship Costa neoClassica will be doing 7 turnarounds at Mumbai Port to Maldives starting December 23,” said Nalini Gupta, head, India operations, Costa Cruises.
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