UAE: Cruise Arabia Promotes 2016/2017 Cruise Tourism

Cruise Arabia, the Arabian Gulf’s cruise tourism alliance, promoted the region’s 2016/2017 winter/spring cruise season at Seatrade Cruise Global 2016 in the USA this month. Sharjah is an active member of the cruise alliance, which also includes tourism authorities from Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Qatar and Oman. Seatrade Cruise Global is the leading annual global business-to-business event for the cruise industry and took place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from 14-17 March.

Sharjah’s cruise tourism offering was promoted at Seatrade Cruise Global by Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority (SCTDA), Sharjah Investment & Development Authority (Shurooq) and cruise industry representatives.

Sharjah has had a busy 2015/2016 cruise season and expects to have received 37 port calls from cruise ships, bringing an estimated 80,000 cruise passengers to the emirate, by the season’s close. The emirate offers two terminals for international cruise liners: Khorfakkan port on the east coast and Port Khalid on the Arabian Gulf coast in the heart of Sharjah city.

Sharjah is building a new leisure cruise ship terminal in Khorfakkan, in line with the emirate’s plans to continue to develop its cruise tourism business. The deep sea port has been welcoming luxury cruise-liners since the early 1980s and is becoming increasingly popular on the itineraries of international operators. The new cruise ship terminal is planned to be a fully-functioning terminal capable of receiving all visiting cruise ships, their passengers and crew, to include dedicated facilities for port customs, immigration authorities, police and visiting tourists.

GCC countries are expected to have received more than a million visits from cruise passengers by the end of the 2015-2016 cruise season and Sharjah’s cruise business has enjoyed steady growth. Sharjah receives cruise liner visits from TUI Cruises, MSC Cruises, Costa Cruises and AIDA Cruises, with most cruise passengers originating in Europe.

Cruise tourism forms an integral part of Sharjah’s tourism development strategy, Tourism Vision 2021, which aims to attract more than 10 million tourists to the emirate by year 2021.

JAPAN: Another Cruise Ship From Mitsubishi

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is expected to push back delivery of a cruise liner to a Carnival affiliate by at least half a year, exacerbating potential losses from the project.

The change affects the second of two ships under construction for Aida Cruises at Mitsubishi Heavy's Nagasaki shipyard. Thousands of technicians are working on the vessels.

"We're using know-how gained from [building] the first ship to improve construction methods and logistics management for the second ship," a company official said. This includes implementing systems to keep track of parts and materials, as well as using simple elevators rather than large cranes to get furniture and other items into cabins.

Delivery of the first ship was initially slated for March 2015. But it has already been pushed back three times over such factors as design and specification changes, with no date currently set. Small fires broke out inside twice this month. Mitsubishi Heavy still expects to deliver the vessel by fiscal year-end, saying in a statement that it is "confident that the fire will not affect the ship's first cruise scheduled to begin on April 30."

The schedule changes have kept personnel and other resources from moving over to the second ship as planned, resulting in the expected delay from the original time frame of this coming March.

The order for the two ships likely came to about 100 billion yen ($844 million). Mitsubishi Heavy has booked more than 160 billion yen in related extraordinary losses, including spending on additional personnel and materials. The delay on the second ship has raised concerns that further losses will follow. The company now sees group net profit rising 18% to 130 billion yen this fiscal year.

Demand for new ships, particularly bulk carriers for such cargo as iron ore, has slowed as China's economy has cooled, and competition with Chinese and South Korean rivals is fierce. Mitsubishi Heavy has tried to use cruise ships, a growing market, to generate steady profits. But the business is still not making money because of the repeated delivery delays, which could force the company to rethink its strategy.