The three luxury liners of November, MV Mein Schiff 3 of TUI Cruises, AIDAbella, a cruise ship operated by AIDA Cruises, and the Sapphire Princess of the Princess Cruise Line each carried between 2,000 and 3,000 passengers part of whom embarked on organized tours in Bentota, Beruwala, Negombo, Colombo and Kandy.
The country's Tourism Ministry is sure the trend persists in 2019, too, with more cruise liners calling to Colombo. In the meantime, it looks like a luxury cruise between Sri Lanka’s northwest Talaimannar port and India’s southern Rameswaram port, can become a reality before the end of 2019. The Chairman of Sail Lanka Yachting Group, Pierre Pringiers, a 74 y.o. long-standing Sri Lanka resident from Belgium, shared his intention to re-establish the link between Talaimannar and Rameswaram launching the first luxury cruise between the two destinations. The process of obtaining the necessary permissions is already well under way.
While it's been already a full decade of the roaring demand for whale watching and a super luxury boat building industry in the south of the country, the north is relatively underdeveloped from this point of view and does not attract too many tourists. Currently Mr Pringiers is in the process of building a super luxury, 10- room French-designed floating boutique hotel with an exclusive deck for each room called Ocean Diamond which would help make things moving.
Cruise Tourism Is On the Rise in Sri Lanka
News in Asia
Last month alone, three super luxury cruise liners ferried about 7,000 tourists to Sri Lanka. Totally, in 2018, 53 cruise ships with over 72,500 passengers on board called to the ports of Sri Lanka resulting in a considerable rise of tourist arrivals.