SINGAPORE - UBM’s Cruise Shipping Asia, which debuts at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre on 16-18 November, hopes to generate up to seven million passengers annually from this region by 2015.
The event, run by UBM Asia and UBM Live, is meant to highlight Asia’s potential as a booming cruise market.
Currently just 0.05 per cent of the 3.5 billion people in the Asia Pacific region take cruise vacations, compared with 3.2 per cent of the 330 million people in North America, and one per cent of the 500 million in Europe.
“Asia is currently the world’s most fertile cruise source market, and we believe Singapore can duplicate the kind of success we have achieved with the Cruise Shipping Miami event,” said UBM Live VP Michael Kazakoff. “Some industry watchers are predicting that by 2015 we could see as many as seven million passengers annually from this region, and that kind of potential demands attention.”
Kazakoff added that the prediction is based on Asian growth estimates that claim a tenth of the population in the region will achieve middle-class status by 2015.
The event has backing from the Asia Cruise Association, the Singapore Tourism Board, Cruise Lines International Association and the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association.
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