Cruise deployment down due to Red Sea crisis, but Dubai set to bounce back

Cruise deployment to the Middle East is down by around 30% due to the ongoing security crisis in the Red Sea, but cruise tourism officials at Arabian Travel Market in Dubai expressed optimism in future growth given the region’s proven resilience. 

All grand voyages and repositioning itineraries between Europe and Asia that used to call in the Middle East, using Dubai as a key turnaround port to break up longer voyages into shorter legs, have been cancelled or amended to avoid the Red Sea.

All major cruise lines have been avoiding the Red Sea since the beginning of the year due to Houthi attacks on internationally shipping off the coast of Yemen, cutting cruise lines off from the Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean.

As a result, far fewer ships are calling in Dubai this year, and those ships that are home-porting in the region, particularly MSC Cruises, AIDA Cruises and Costa Cruises, have seen reduced occupancy due to the perception of threat.

Cruises from Dubai are seen as risky by some passengers, even though the Arabian Gulf itself is not at risk of any insecurity amid the Israel-Gaza war and Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, while the UAE is one of the safest countries in the world.

Whereas cruise occupancy is at 111% in the Caribbean and 107% in the Mediterranean, it’s at 90% in the Middle East and Africa, according to Oxford Economics.

During a cruise-focused conference panel at ATM 2024, Dave Goodger, managing director of EMEA Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics, stressed that the industry was “very resilient”.

“There is this perception of risk and [tourism is] driven by perceptions,” Goodger said. “When there are adverse effects, people tend to stay away, but travellers come back. There is an impact today, but that’s not to say it’ll impact the industry tomorrow.”

Dubai and the wider Middle Eastern cruise sector has proven itself resilient to disruption in recent years. During the COVID-19 pandemic the entire cruise industry was shut down globally, and the 2020/21 cruise season in Dubai ended early as a result.

By November, 2020 however, Dubai had reopened to cruises, and although numbers were significantly lower than the pre-pandemic high, by 2023 there was a near full recovery.

While Dubai and other GCC ports in the Arabian Gulf are popular winter cruise destinations internationally, officials at ATM 2024 also stressed the need to better penetrate the local cruise market.

The potential within the region’s cruise sector is “huge”, said Saud Hareb Almheiri, cruise tourism and yachting lead at Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism. “But people in the region need to be more aware that they can cruise in our own backyard. They don’t need to fly six hours to the Med or 15 hours to the Caribbean.”

He said this was partly why the Cruise Arabian Alliance was set up in March, to foster co-operation in the region as the UAE, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain work together to enhance cruise infrastructure and service levels and promote cruising to the local market.