Dubai Maritime City Authority (DMCA), in collaboration with the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing – Dubai (DTCM), successfully organized a ‘Sea Dubai’ workshop recently. The session, which was attended by representatives from waterfront hotels operating in the emirate, represents a forward step in the move towards engaging Dubai’s stakeholders to promote the experience generated by boats, yachts and other forms of marine leisure. The workshop is part of DMCA’s commitment to promote effective partnerships with the public and private sectors to elevate the maritime and leisure industry and make Dubai one of the leading global maritime leisure destinations. The DTCM was represented by Sultan Al Mutairi, Director of Business Partnerships and Government Relations.

During the workshop, DMCA officials gave talks and presentations detailing the ‘Sea Dubai’ initiative, which is aimed towards integrating all maritime leisure activities to ensure a unique experience for tourists visiting Dubai, backed by advanced features to accelerate and facilitate the search and identifying marine leisure activities, sites, tourist destinations, marinas, recreational places and waterfront hotels, as well as floating restaurants, yacht clubs, yacht and boat rental companies, ski and water sports companies. The sessions also showcased the initiative’s efforts to create a leading maritime cluster for marine activities in Dubai and enhance direct access to a wide range of services related to mooring, marine leisure and different water sports.

Amer Ali, Executive Director, DMCA, lauded the active involvement of Dubai’s waterfront hotels, especially in the move to provide tourists with unique marine leisure experiences. He explained that the positive response from the hotel operators represent the commitment to enhance maritime leisure services offered across Dubai’s territorial waters. Ali also highlighted the importance of the unified efforts to reinforce Dubai’s global position as a maritime recreation hub.

Ali added, “We are pleased at the turnout of today’s workshop, which was highlighted by key discussions on how we can further reinforce the success of the ‘Sea Dubai’ initiative, which has played a key role in laying the foundation for the development of key guidelines and standards to drive in more growth and development for the marine leisure segment. The event proves to be both timely and strategic as Dubai continues to play an influential role in the global yachting segment. In fact, a recent study made by the International Foundation for Travel and Tourism and Global Luxury Destinations has forecasted that Dubai’s maritime segment is expected to reach USD 74.7 billion by 2022.”

The ‘Sea Dubai’ initiative proves to be a solid ground to elevate recreational maritime activities as a main component of the local maritime community, which stands out among the most competitive, attractive and comprehensive maritime communities in the world. The emirate’s leading position can be attributed to its developed advantages and integrated services that conform with top-notch technological innovations designed to ensure users` accessibility to the right and adequate information related to all aspects of maritime recreation.

“We look forward to reaching out to both private and public sectors in a way to help achieve the goals of the ‘Sea Dubai’ initiative by scaling up maritime recreational activities and increasing their contribution to attract more maritime investments. All efforts and endeavours are directed towards building sustainable, safe and renewable maritime sector to support economic diversification, in line with the goals of Dubai Plan 2021 that is focused on building diversification-dependent economy driven by productivity and innovation,” he concluded.

All workshop participants got the chance to ask DMCA team about all aspects and advantages of the ‘Sea Dubai’ initiative. DMCA representatives provided detailed explanations and demonstrations about the updated version of the initiative, which covers all recreational maritime activities like jet skis, sea sports, restaurants, floating shops and beaches. It also covers public water transportation like water buses, water taxis, and traditional modes of transportation such as ferries and dhows.