Digital Marketing for Cruise Tourism in Oman: Opportunities and Challenges

Introduction

As a sub-category of tourism (Papathanassis & Beckmann, 2011), cruise tourism emerged in the 1960s (Atef & Al Balushi, 2017; Jiao et al., 2021) when affordable air travel largely replaced ocean passenger transport (Aziz et al., 2020), and has rapidly expanded due to high standard offerings, attractive price offerings and a diverse range of on-board activities (Manthiou et al., 2017). The industry is dominated by three major cruise lines headquartered in Florida, USA (Carnival Corporation, plc., Norwegian Cruise Line Corporation, Ltd., and Royal Caribbean Group) who, collectively, account for 82% of the total market share (Chang et al., 2017) and control the majority of North American leisure cruising (Li & Kwortnik, 2017). Despite combined losses of USD$39 billion for the ‘big three’ resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, industry estimates suggest that recovery will be fuelled by more than 31 million people taking a cruise in 2023 with that figure to exceed 36 million in 2024: industry rebound is further reflected in anticipated travel spending reaching USD$1.15 trillion that year (Cruise Market Watch, 2023). The most popular destinations remain the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and Northern Europe (Cruise Lines International Association, 2022), however, Carnival Lines and Royal Caribbean are increasingly bringing tourists to Oman who are seeking natural and cultural exploration opportunities (Jiao et al., 2021).

Oman’s need for economic diversification has driven an increased focus on tourism and, over the last two decades, there has been a steady increase in cruise ship traffic to the country’s three key ports: Salalah Port in the south, Sultan Qaboos Port in Muscat and Khasab Port at the northern-most tip (Atef & Al Balushi, 2017) increasing from 24 visiting cruise vessels in 2005 to 135 cruise liners within the following seven years (Gutberlet, 2016). As Oman progresses towards economic diversity, tourism is acknowledged as a strategic and priority sector in the government’s National Strategy for Tourism development and is predicted to develop a reputation for its tourist facilities. Cruise tourism in Oman is limited to the cooler months of October to April when temperatures average between 25C-35C daily, aligning well with the needs of the cruise industry for destinations offering escape from northern hemisphere winters. Consumers currently show a preference for travelling to less crowded and more unfamiliar destinations indicating an interest in secondary and nature-based travel experiences (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2022). Fitting flawlessly into this category, Oman has become a strategic emerging destination for the global cruise industry. Another change to the cruise tourism industry travelling alongside the expansion of destinations is the profile of cruise tourists themselves. The image of the ‘luxury floating building’ of the past (Brida & Zapata, 2010) has evolved to become less focused on luxury and to target a wider market including Generation X and Millennials (Jiao et al., 2021). According to Atef and Al Balushi (2017, p. 4), millennials are now cruising for the first time: a younger and more demanding cohort with high expectations of entertainment and communication. Most recent Omani cruise tourist satisfaction research (Aziz et al., 2020) reveals that the senior market is still a critical segment, however, with the largest group of their survey participants (22.4%) aged over 60 years. This reflects the findings of Casado-Díaz et al. (2021) who found that the age group >63 years accounted for only 18% of the sample, confirming that younger people are becoming more attracted to this form of vacation. Han and Hyun (2019) similarly found that approximately one-third of their sample were between 18 and 34 years old.