Regional ports plan meeting to promote cruise tourism

The Cruise Indian Ocean Association (CIOA) will host a meeting in Durban in May to market facilities and tourist attractions in the South and East African Indian Ocean. 

The two-day forum will provide a meeting point for top cruise line executives and delegates from tourism, hospitality and marine sectors in the sub region, the public relations officials at the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) said in an in house maritime journal, Our Ports, published by the Ports Management Association of East and South Africa (PMAESA).

CIOA was formally established in Mombasa in 2000 to promote cruise tourism and is composed of the port authorities and national tourism organisations in the East and South African sub-region.

Sea-trade event

“The CIOA has pursued the possibility of holding a Seatrade event in the region for sometime and this effort was finally rewarded following the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the association and Seatrade Communication Ltd during the Seatrade Europe Convention at Hamburg, Germany,” KPA said.

The objectives of the forum will be to showcase the region as a desirable destination for cruise passengers and to encourage additional deployment of cruise vessels to the region on long term basis, said the communiqué.

Although the CIOA region, which includes among others Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania Zanzibar and South Africa has a great potential, the East Africa region suffers from poor infrastructure to support the cruise ship business.

In Mombasa port for instance, the cruise ships use berth 1 and 2 which are used to handle conventional cargo and vehicles and as such do not have any facility to handle human traffic.

In 2006, the Ministry of Transport shelved plans to construct a modern cruise terminal at Mombasa port after failing to find a strategic partner to invest in the facility.

The terminal plan, contained in the port’s 25-year master plan and its strategic plan of 2004 currently under review would have re-developed the two berths into a world class cruise ship facility.

However, due to the limitation in the number of berths, which are currently being rearranged to handle the growing cargo traffic through the port, maritime experts says that the port will not convert the two berths into cruise terminal.

The first draft of the revised master plan presented to the port stakeholders in June, this year, proposed a cruise terminal in the western side of Port Reitz.

“Timing dependent on the construction of the by-pass to Dongo Kundu and on the development of the cruise liner market,” the master plan said. 

Cruise ships calling at the Mombasa ports are also interested in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar and in case there is a problem in any of the three destinations, the cruise liner avoids the entire circuit.

The CIOA region has natural attractions which include Nubian Deserts, Mt Kilimanjaro and the Great Rift Valley.