'Strong desire among global travellers to visit Qatar'

Cruise passengers who visit Qatar are highly satisfied with the country’s curated tourism offerings, creating a strong desire for other travellers from around the world to visit the destination, MSC Cruises executive director Angelo Capurro has said."We see a lot of interest (for tourists to visit Qatar) as a destination so a lot of (our) customers disembark, make excursions and live the experience of the city, and the response we are receiving in terms of satisfaction is quite high,” he explained.Capurro, in Doha recently for an event, cited a record number of cruise passengers who visited Qatar’s popular tourism spots in previous weeks during this 2022-23 cruise season.Like the US and Europe, he noted that Qatar (as a tourism destination), as well as the region, is booming as it continues to receive a huge number of visitors, including those from MSC and other cruise ships."We are talking about 7,000 passengers every week, it is quite big. Many customers go around, they want to explore the destination, so it means there is a lot of interest,” he said, reiterating that "on top of this... there is always a very high satisfaction coming out of what they are seeing here”.With such demand, Capurro said the company is bringing a new state-of-the-art mega cruise ship to the region next year, which can carry more than 5,000 passengers.Capurro pointed out that the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 also provided a good opportunity for MSC to showcase its product.Three MSC ships of different sizes and capacities – Opera, World Europa and Poesia – served as ‘modern floating hotels’ during the tournament.The MSC executive said the post-World Cup and post-Covid-19 pandemic is a chance for people to explore different destinations, especially Qatar and the region."The area is wonderful so people can have everything, the city is booming. There are a lot of things to see, there are a lot of things to do – the desert, everything, the nature around, and also the city is offering a lot of stuff."People want to go back to normality and they understand that cruise is a very safe way to go around without having a lot of stress and this (post Covid-19) is a huge opportunity for us,” Capurro added.