Cruise ship season back in Bahrain

Manama, Nov. 29 (BNA): Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority (BTEA) announced today the return of the cruise ship season set to continue until early 2017. It aims to add further value to the Kingdom of Bahrain's tourism offering and further develop the local economy especially for the handicraft and local artisans. The season took off with the AZAMARA ship from the Royal Caribbean berthed at the port of Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman in Hidd area with around 700 high-income visitors on board. The visitors enjoyed a stroll around Bahrain and learned about the culture, the most prominent sites and archaeological heritage, including the old traditional markets. Eager to be fully ready for the season, the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority (BTEA) participated in the Seatrade Cruise Mid conference and exhibition earlier this year. The participation was aimed at promoting the kingdom as a distinct international tourism destination and at luring more visitors from all over the world. BTEA also brings back its creative traditional-food cooking classes for foreigners, and which has been applauded by renowned marine companies. Many tourism marine companies are set to arrive in Bahrain this season, some of them will be coming for the first time like MSC from Holland and Tom San Cruise. MSC has scheduled six trips for this year, the first to take off on December 8. Tom San Cruise also has six trips scheduled, each with more than 12000 visitors, starting from December 29. AIDA will come back for its ninth season with 14 trips to Bahrain, each carrying 2500 visitors. Whilst German company TUI will bring 2300 visitors in 7 trips to Bahrain, participating for the fifth time in the season. Over 100 lecturers and academics from prominent universities and education foundations in the United States such as Harvard and Stanford will be arriving on Noble Caledonia’s "Island Sky" ship on December 4. BTEA’s CEO, Shaikh Khalid bin Humood Al Khalifa, emphasized the Kingdom’s efforts to facilitate the arrival of tourist ships in coordination with the concerned authorities aiming to activate the tourism sector and increase its contribution to the local economy. Last season, Bahrain received 30 marine ships, as the movement of ships increased from 40% to 42%. As MSC will add 4,500 visitors, the number will be increasing by 55%.