Two equally incredible tourist attractions will be at the top of the travel wish list for Aussies looking to travel the world this year, writes Des Houghton.
A mega museum and the arrival of a mega cruise ship will almost certainly dominate international travel news this year.
Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, launched in January last year is the largest vessel afloat.
If she stood on her end, she would be taller than the Eiffel Tower. Icon of the Seas carries 7,600 passengers who have the choice of seven swimming pools and 40 restaurants and bars with a dizzying variety of menu options.
The 250,800-ton giant launched last year has eight “neighbourhoods” packed with amenities that include a 55-foot waterfall, six water slides, cafes, shops and entertainment venues.
Icon of the Seas has 20 decks.
Jason Liberty, president and chief executive of Royal Caribbean Group, told news agencies the launch had been phenomenally successful.
Other major cruise lines, like Carnival, Norwegian and MSC, will launch “next generation” vessels by 2027.
Cruising is soaring in popularity globally – in ships large and small.
There were fears that COVID-19 would kill cruising stone dead.
However, Royal Caribbean wasn’t listening to word of that, and it began ordering more and more mega liners.
Icon of the Seas was popular with families from day one.
Royal Caribbean was founded in Norway and now has its headquarters in Miami, Florida, the undisputed “cruise capital of the world”.
The company already has more of its Icon Class ships on order.
Next will be Star of the Seas to be launched in August, and a third ship that has not yet been named but will be delivered in 2026. And there are plans for a fourth ship to hit the water in 2027. From early videos I have seen, Star of the Seas looks like a giant theme park with theatres, restaurants and a late-night jazz club.
No fewer than 34.7 million will take a cruise this year, according to Cruise Lines International Association, the industry’s trade group.
In 2023, 31.7 million passengers around the world took to the water. In 2019 there were 29.7 million passengers.
Just how big is cruising?
Shipyards have taken orders for 70 new vessels that will add at least 170,000 berths to the global cruise fleet by 2036.
The world’s largest cruise ships are now twice as big as they were in 2000, the Brussels-based Transport and Environment agency reports.
The agency warns of the environmental impacts. It says there are even bigger vessels planned, some eight times larger than the Titanic with a capacity to carry nearly 11,000 travellers.
Cruise companies are now offering trips to see the Grand Egyptian Museum, GEM, the most spectacular new tourist attraction on the planet, if that is not belittling its historical significance.
It took two decades to build and came in 11 years behind schedule. It cost more than US$1bn and with a floor space of 490,000 square metres, it is the world’s largest archaeological museum near Cairo.
It has been described as a mega museum with the feel of an international airport terminal, although an architecturally splendid one.
GEM has 12 galleries arranged chronologically over 3,000 years, from prehistory and the Old Kingdom through the Middle and New Kingdoms to the Greeks and Romans. Objects from each period are divided into “Society”, “Kingship” and “Beliefs”, The Times of London reported.
Once it is fully operational, it will be able to hold more than 100,000 items, including the complete collection of artefacts discovered in the tomb of boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun which have been languishing in storage for decades.
It is not known when Tutankhamun’s gold mask, sarcophagus and other treasures remain in the old museum in Cairo’s Tahrir Square will make their way to GEM.
Tutankhamun was about eight years old when he came to the throne in 1333 BC and around 17 when he died.
Tourism is the backbone of the Egyptian economy.
What’s next?
China is building a prototype “floating train” projected to reach speeds of nearly 1000 kilometres per hour, faster than even a commercial airliner.
The World Economic Forum newsletter says the new magnetic levitation (maglev) will harness strong electromagnets which lift and propel the train forward on a cushion of air.
A train that fast would get you from Melbourne to Sydney in under one hour, or San Francisco to LA in 35 minutes.
China already has the world’s fastest commercial maglev service. The Shanghai Maglev, with a top operational speed of 431 km/h, has been carrying passengers on a 30 km stretch between Shanghai’s Pudong airport and the city centre since 2003.
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