Tourism

Cruise Tourism has been one of the fast growing Tourism segments over the past few decades. Its demand and supply are more concentrated in North America, with Caribbean as the most important destination.
However, in the recent years Europe and to a lesser extent Asia and the Pacific have been growing rapidly on this direction. (Kester J.G.C, Tourism Economics, Volume 9.Number 3, 1 Sep 2003, pp337-350(14).In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), tourism officials has high hopes on the cruise ship industry as it looks forward to diversifying its economy.

With the sparing of UAE cruise ship from the global economic miseries facing the tourism industry, its said to be doing well in passenger traffic along with other benefits from its local economy. Still on developing the tourism industry in the UAE, an Italian cruise company Costa Cruises intends to open an office in Dubai. (Kippreport.com).With this sector being the fastest growing in the Tourism Industry for the past twenty years, the growth is still expected to continue into the future. The sector has not only improved the economy but has also been of great impact to both environmental and cultural arenas. This has also been found to be important particularly in small island destinations and has made cruise ship tourism to be given more attention as it continues to rule over the Tourism Industry.

The Caribbean region accounts for 50 of the global cruise market. However, the social, economical and environmental impacts of this Industry have been argued out over time. It has been quoted as not being well understood and also undermined in literature or otherwise neglected. Studies on social impacts have been said to be practically nonexistent (Wood, 2000) and little research has been carried out to give out evidence from the port states of the economic impacts of cruise tourism (WTO 2003). ( The Impact of Cruise Ship Tourism on local Economies, Panel CZ 05, Thomas J. Murray, Virginia Institute of Marine Science)