PANJIM: While the number of international tourists arriving via chartered flights has seen a decline this tourist season, those arriving on cruise liners have already touched an impressive 7917 passengers, at the Mormugao Port Trust so far. The Tourism Department expects more than 30,000 tourists to arrive in Goa by May 2015 on cruise liners.
The Mormugao Port in association with Goa Tourism has hosted eight cruise liners till date with the first luxury cruise liner ‘Aida Sol’ with 2,203 passengers arriving on November 21, 2014. Cruise ships ‘Voyager’ and ‘Aida Aura’ followed bringing with them 463 and 1,177 high-end tourists respectively, to Goa in one single day.
This was followed by the arrival of three more luxury cruise vessels – ‘Azmara Quest’ ‘Seven Seas Voyager’ and ‘Nautica,’ arriving at the port on three consecutive days. November saw the highest number of six luxury cruise ships calling at the port, in 10 days bringing in a total of 5717 high-end tourists.
From the beginning of this tourism season, till date, MPT has played host to eight luxury cruise liners handling a total of 7917 passengers. Most of the passengers are foreign nationals from Germany, USA and Canada and elsewhere.
As the tourism season progresses steadily, the departments of Port and Tourism are expecting 25 cruise ships to arrive at Mormugao. The current tourism season is expected to see 30,494 cruise ship passengers indicating a phenomenal rise in the number of luxury tourist arrivals in the State during the year.
The highest number of 3300 cruise passengers will be brought in by the liner ‘Aida Prima’ due to arrive at the Port on May 3, 2015. So as to give luxury cruise shipping a further boost in the State, MPT is building a state-of-the-art cruise berth terminal at an estimated cost of Rs 8.79 crore which will be ready by December.
Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar said they are receiving good response from luxury cruises as high-end tourists are arriving in Goa via the high seas. “We are looking forward to a successful season from luxury cruise vessel and GTDC will give all the support required,” he said.
