Dubai’s cruise ship terminal at Mina Rashid more than doubled the number of cruise passangers it receives since it opening 4 years ago.
Hamdan bin Mohammed Cruise Terminal, which is managed by DP World, received more than 625,000 vacationers in 2016-2017 season, up from 320,000 cruisers that arrived in Dubai in 2013-2014 season.
The number of cruise passengers is due to top 700,000 in 2018-2019 season.
Since the cruise terminal opened in 2014, around 1.9 million cruisers visited Dubai onboard 489 vessels. Cruise ship calls increased by 68% from 93 in 2013-2014 season to 156 in 2016-2017.
The UAE aims to draw 1 million cruisers a year from 2020 onwards. Key to the growth is the terminal that is set to be the biggest in the world, able of handling 18,000 cruise passengers per day.
Currently, the largest cruise port in the world is in Miami FL, which welcomed nearly 5M cruisers in 2016.
Cruise tourism market in Dubai has grown rapidly over the past 4 seasons as the port city is becoming a choice destination for many cruise enthusiasts sailing from Europe and the United States.