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More tourists and residents are going on cruises from Dubai and the UAE to other points in the region as well as the Mediterranean. Image Credit: Supplied

Dubai: The Dubai Cruise Terminal at Port Rashid, operated by DP World, welcomed 625,000-holidaymakers in 2016-2017 cruise tourism season, doubling the 320,000 cruise visitors that arrived in Dubai in the 2013-2014 season. 

The cuise tourism numbers are now expected to top 700,000 in the 2018-2019 travel season.

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Since the inauguration of DP World’s state-of-the-art Hamdan Bin Mohammad Cruise Terminal, T3, at Mina Rashid back in 2014, there has been a 68 per cent increase in cruise ship calls to Dubai from 93 in the 2013-2014 season to 156 in 2016-2017.

Around 1.9 million cruise tourists visited Dubai on board a total of 489 cruise calls during the four seasons from 2013 to 2017.

The number of cruise visitors is expected to touch 700,000 in the 2018-2019 season.

Infrastructure development is underway to add more capacity to DP World’s Mina Rashid Cruise Termina.

The port currently equipped to handle seven mega cruise vessels or 25,000 passengers simultaneously.

Dubai’s cruise tourism market has grown rapidly over the past four seasons as the city is becoming a choice destination for cruise enthusiasts from Europe and the US, said Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DP World, Chairman of Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation. “Our plans for further boosting the sector will certainly help achieve more growth in the coming years.”