FILE PHOTO: Visitors walking past the Thumbs Up monument by French artist César Baldaccini at the Souq Waqif in Doha. March 18, 2019. Salim Matramkot © The Peninsula
Qatar’s tourism sector is set to witness record number of cruise tourists in the current cruise season. Around 235,000 tourists in 74 cruise ships are expected to arrive at Doha Port in the 2019-20 season, making it the busiest season so far, according to Mwani Qatar.
Mein Schiff 5 will be the first cruise ship of the season to dock at Doha Port, said Mwani Qatar in a tweet yesterday. Cruise season 2019-2020 will see arrival of several mega ships.
MSC Lirica, AIDA Prima, Seabourn Encore, Crystal Esprit, Jewel of the Seas, Costa Diadema, MSC Bellissima, Seabourn Ovation, Azamara Quest are among the major luxury cruise ships that will bring tourists to Qatari shores this season.
Cruise ships MSC Bellissima and Jewel of the Seas will mark their maiden voyage to Qatar. The cruise season runs from September to April in Qatar.
The previous cruise season was immensely successful as huge number of tourists had come to Qatar aboard luxury ships. Doha Port had welcomed a record number of passengers in the 2018-19 season. The port received 144,707 passengers and crew on 44 ships during the season according to Mwani Qatar. High number of tourists was a result of main line cruise vessels expressing their interest in Doha and deploying bigger cruise vessels to Doha.
Government’s focused measures for the tourism sector and Mwani Qatar’s efforts to bring in major cruise liners to Qatar are the major factors behind country’s booming cruise tourism sector.
Doha Port’s passenger terminal infrastructure is being developed to bring it in line with international passenger terminals in anticipation of further volume growth leading to FIFA World Cup 2022.
The Ministry of Transport and Communications, in June had announced completion of the dredging works at Doha Port as part of its redevelopment project. Up to 3.5 million cubic metres of material in the approach channel had been cleared and extra berthing was provided to accommodate more than one giant cruise ship.
