Costa Crociere S.p.A of Italy will start three and four nights cruise line sailings from Mumbai to Kochi via Mangaluru and Kochi to Maldives respectively from November to March to tap the demand for short cruise services in India as some of the country’s state-run ports step-up efforts to boost revenues.
Costa Crociere, Italy’s largest travel group and Europe’s top cruise company, will continue to run the seven-nights sailings on the Mumbai-Maldives sector that was operated between December 2016 and March 2017 with Mumbai as the home port where services begin and end, the entity that runs cruise services under the brand name Costa Cruises said on Tuesday.
The Genoa, Italy-based Costa is a unit of Carnival Corporation & plc, the world’s largest cruise ship operator. The cruise operator will deploy its ship named ‘Costa neoClassica’ for the service.
“Cruise tourism is a new opportunity for India,” said Sanjay Bhatia, Chairman, Mumbai Port Trust.
“It’s a new era for us; we want to push this really big across India,” he said on Tuesday. Some 55 cruise ships called at the Mumbai Port in 2016-17 carrying about 60,000 passengers. Bhatia said a global consultant, hired by the government to prepare an action plan for cruise tourism, estimated a potential of 40 lakh cruise tourists of which Mumbai alone would account for 30 lakh and 700 ship calls.
While Mumbai Port Trust continues to earn more money from cargo ships, cruise ships are expected to bring extra revenue.
Port chargesBhatia said the government would soon announce rationalisation and reduction in port charges for cruise ships calling at the Central government-owned ports, one of the 30 recommendations made by the global consultant to attract more cruise ships and boost traffic.
The vessel related charges such as port dues, berth hire and pilotage are collected on the basis of the gross registered tonnage (GRT) of the ships and are on the higher side. “During rationalisation, we are considering an option to collect the fees on a per passenger basis,” Bhatia added.