South Mumbai will soon have another option for coastal tourists wherein Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) plans to start harbour cruise services between Domestic Cruise Terminal (DCT) in Mazgaon to the Gateway of India and Nariman Point, in addition to other harbours around Mumbai's eastern coast.
The MbPT claims that cruise like vessel will be ferrying tourists for a joyride between the locations mentioned. Earlier this month, MbPT has recently started floating restaurants at the Gateway along with Mumbai-Goa cruise services.
Sanjay Bhatia, chairman, MbPT, said, "Elephanta island and Gateway of India are some of the destinations where we will have sailing for tourists. It will be moving but will not stationed at any of the destinations where it goes for sailing, and it will start from DCT and come back to DCT."
Bhatia added, "These harbour cruise services will not be for transportation but only for tourism purposes. However, they will not be like a full-fledged cruise. There will only be a vessel with some seating capacity and a small canteen. In the coming days, operators to run the service will be appointed."
According to MbPT officials, the idea of starting harbour cruise services is to let citizens have the experience of sailing internally, since there is none available as of today. "We are going to have activities like floating restaurants and sea-side hotels at domestic cruise terminal, and we need to have supporting infrastructure for the same so tourists visit the place often," an official said.
The Trust says the Gateway is almost saturated as far as tourism activities go and infrastructure will fall short for activities like sea-side restaurants, walkways, cycle tracks and skating rinks.
Daily more than seven lakh tourists visit the city of Mumbai, according to rough estimates. According to MbPT, even if 2 to 5 per cent of these engage in the upcoming coastal tourism activities, it will create a lot of jobs.
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