Call to make cruises to UAE plain sailing

The need to buy multiple visas is holding back the development of the regional cruise industry.

Royal Caribbean, which owns the Brilliance of the Seas, is extending its cruise season in Dubai by two months for next season.

The world's second-largest cruise company has urged tourism authorities to introduce a special visa allowing passengers more than one entry to the country.

The cost of having to buy several single-entry visas to sail to destinations in the UAE is hampering the growth of the industry, Royal Caribbean International says.

Tourists of most nationalities have to purchase single-entry visas to enter the UAE, meaning passengers on cruises through the Gulf each have to buy up to three visas at a total cost of US$225 (Dh826.41) as they sail out and back into the country, adding up to $900 to a cruise holiday for a family of four.

"It's a challenge - it's an inhibitor to sales," said Helen Beck, a Royal Caribbean regional director, speaking on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai this week.

The cruise sector has experienced huge growth in recent years and has become increasingly important to the Abu Dhabi and Dubai tourism industries.

Dubai this year expects to attract 120 cruise ships carrying 425,000 passengers, up from 103 ships with 390,255 passengers last year. In 2015, Dubai hopes to attract 180 ships carrying 625,000 passengers. This October, MSC Cruises will start to use Abu Dhabi as a home port.

"For us being the new one in the Gulf region, coming in for 19 cruises out of Abu Dhabi is a great, great opportunity to position ourself in the Gulf," said Alfredo Spadon, the corporate commercial manager of emerging markets at MSC Cruises. "Mainly our competitors are in Dubai."

Royal Caribbean, meanwhile, has extended its cruise season in Dubai by two months for next season.

It says demand for Gulf cruises is growing rapidly and is calling for a "cruise visa" to be issued to facilitate further growth.

"It's a federal issue and at some point it will be resolved because the different authorities will all understand the impact it's having and the block it's having on growing," Ms Beck said.

"The Russian market, China, those very large emerging markets that are required to get the single-entry visas for entering the UAE, that's a huge chunk of the world."

Ms Beck said there was "extraordinary growth and interest in cruising out of the Chinese market".

"We're getting great support from the tourism authorities to push this through."

Tour operators agree. "If the government will issue some kind of multiple-entry visas that will really help the industry, so we can take the tourists to Oman or any other destination and they can come back to Dubai on the same visa," said Haytham al Haj Ali, the managing director of the tour company Dubai Link.