Cruise Tourism
Executive Summary
Cruise tourism is becoming an increasingly popular “leisure choice” worldwide, and keeping this point in mind cruise tourism potential of India is vast and is still in infancy stage. Mumbai as the commercial capital and gate way of India possess the great potential of cruise tourism as this place sees the highest number of tourist coming in and going out so it becomes the necessity of the time to convert Mumbai port from “port of call” to “home port”. This report has been prepared considering these facts and also it throws light on what has to be done to make Mumbai port as “Home Port”.
1. What is Cruising?
Cruising is a unique tourism product, a blend of the 5A’s: attractions, activities, access, accommodation, amenities. The words "luxury" and "pampering" are found in all cruise brochures, and every cruise line proudly highlights these five aspects to market its product. Cruising is now well established as one of the most service-intensive sectors in the world, with ever more unbelievable state-of-the-art vessels being built each year. ‘Pampered in luxury" accurately describes the cruise experience.
1.1 How this concept came into existence?
Cruise tourism made its small beginnings in 1839 as part of the fortnightly crossing mail service between Liverpool and Boston. Samuel Cunard obtained a British Admiralty contract of 55,000 pounds to provide a mail service and started his ‘British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company’ later known as the Cunard Line. The inaugural sailing carried 63 passengers along with the mail and constituted the first regularly scheduled trans-North Atlantic passenger service. Almost 58 years later, technological advancement in the form of the steam turbine propulsion technology enabled bigger and better vessels to be launched. In 1907 Cunard introduced a new 30,000-ton class of liner, the Lusitania and Mauretania, marking the beginning of leisure passenger travels on the seas.
With the
Cruise tourism is becoming an increasingly popular “leisure choice” worldwide, and keeping this point in mind cruise tourism potential of India is vast and is still in infancy stage. Mumbai as the commercial capital and gate way of India possess the great potential of cruise tourism as this place sees the highest number of tourist coming in and going out so it becomes the necessity of the time to convert Mumbai port from “port of call” to “home port”. This report has been prepared considering these facts and also it throws light on what has to be done to make Mumbai port as “Home Port”.
1. What is Cruising?
Cruising is a unique tourism product, a blend of the 5A’s: attractions, activities, access, accommodation, amenities. The words "luxury" and "pampering" are found in all cruise brochures, and every cruise line proudly highlights these five aspects to market its product. Cruising is now well established as one of the most service-intensive sectors in the world, with ever more unbelievable state-of-the-art vessels being built each year. ‘Pampered in luxury" accurately describes the cruise experience.
1.1 How this concept came into existence?
Cruise tourism made its small beginnings in 1839 as part of the fortnightly crossing mail service between Liverpool and Boston. Samuel Cunard obtained a British Admiralty contract of 55,000 pounds to provide a mail service and started his ‘British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company’ later known as the Cunard Line. The inaugural sailing carried 63 passengers along with the mail and constituted the first regularly scheduled trans-North Atlantic passenger service. Almost 58 years later, technological advancement in the form of the steam turbine propulsion technology enabled bigger and better vessels to be launched. In 1907 Cunard introduced a new 30,000-ton class of liner, the Lusitania and Mauretania, marking the beginning of leisure passenger travels on the seas.
With the
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