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Cruise along to Salalah - enjoy four seasons

Salalah Lakshmi
Salalah Lakshmi
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Salalah: Cruise tourism in Salalah is beginning to display signs of future potential. Due to its location, the Port of Salalah has the advantage to receive crossing cruises, which are bound either to Asian, European or African countries but make a stopover at Salalah to give its occupants an entirely new experience.


The rugged beauty, which tourist Matty Carvalho calls “the paradise of the Gulf” and recommends “a must visit to have an awesome experience.” Everyone gets a mind-blowing experience even during their short tour of the city, as most of the cruises have a short stopover, maybe for six to 10 hours.


The cruise movement for 2018-19 has already started with a positive and better outlook for the season. With the likely movement of 40 cruise ships from different locations, the destination is expecting more than 30,000 cruise tourists this season.


The vessels coming from countries like Italy, Germany, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Denmark and many more destinations after stopover at major ports and cities, these cruise liners are giving good business to local tour operators, who deal with their ground operations and manage local sightseeing services.


Ahmed Said al Afri, Manager of Zahra Tours in Salalah, confirmed this trend and said more cruise ships were lined for Salalah stopover on way to their different destinations. The volume of tourists in one ship varies from 1,000 to 3,000 thus making immediate demand for services to take the tourists around. “This is a fact now that the destination is no more limited to Khareef (monsoon) season. It has changed into four-season destination with the movement of cruises and charters… it has expanded a lot and demand for expert guides is growing up. It is up to the policymakers and tour operators to decide as to how this demand-supply gap can be fulfilled,” he said.


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