MV aquamarine: A social-mobility cruise for middle class

They’ve been in the arc lights for a while now, for their upward mobility, hunger for consumption, and lofty ambitions. If there was ever a hint that the great Indian middle class, despite the considerable strength of their disposable income, was still fettered to traditional options for unwinding like a trip to Ooty, Tirupati or Shimla, it was disproved this week when cruiseliner Aquamarine majestically cut through the waters of the Arabian sea, powered as much by their wallets as by the vessel’s powerful diesel engines.

On board were about 600 holidayers, almost all of them Indian, with a large number of them from middle-class families, taking a cruise to the Maldives, paying upwards of Rs 5,500 per head per night for a three-night trip.
Cruises have always been an elite tourism product, and for Indian tourists, a cruise necessarily meant a flight to Singapore, the Caribbean or some Mediterranean location before boarding a vessel.

In other words, a family holiday budget that would easily cross the Rs 1 lakh budget.

That pricing model was cracked this week when international cruise operator Louis Cruises brought cruising to the middle-class Indian, in the process conferring on Kochi the title of the sole Indian home port for a cruise vessel, offering cruises to Maldives and Sri Lanka every week.

The product has caught on well, if the number of passengers on the inaugural cruise and their faces were any indication. Says Oneil Khosa, managing director of Louis Cruises India: “The global cruise industry is watching our operations from Kochi.

Other cruiseliners are waiting to make a move depending on our performance” .

Kochi was picked because of its proximity to the international shipping route as well as Kerala’s inherent strengths in tourism, and domestic tourists did not seem to mind travelling to Kochi for a cruise experience, with tourists from as far as Guwahati making it for the first cruise.

According to EM Najeeb, chairman of Air Travel Enterprises, the preferred sales agents for the cruise, the product has brought sea cruises to the realm of ordinary Indians. “Roughly, 80% of holidayers on the first cruise were from middle-class families, and for them this was a wholly different holiday experience” .

Aware of the strong potential from the cruise business, the Cochin Port Trust is preparing to open a Rs 400-crore international cruise terminal. Last year, 36 luxury vessels berthed in Kochi and 28 have already confirmed booking this year. These are in addition to Louis Cruises’ operations.

CPT chairman N Ramachandran says the reasonable rates offered for cruises could be good bait to attract the domestic market.

Louis Cruises’ country head Vijay Puthran says the early interest is encouraging: “We have enquiries from three persons for holding weddings aboard the vessel, there are Bollywood and Kollywood plans to shoot song scenes aboard the vessel, and enquiries have come from religious groups for holding their meetings” , says he.

Louis Cruises has signed a five-year MoU with Kerala Tourism and is expecting around 60,000 passengers during the first phase of its operation that will last till April 2010. Early clues say that by next Diwali, the lights will be as much on the high seas as in many ordinary Indian homes.

(With inputs from Joe A Scaria)