Globally, cruise ship tourism has been one of the fastest growing segments, with new vessels under construction and passenger numbers climbing at a steady rate.

Among the ports along the African coastline benefiting from the segment include South Africa, Mauritius, and the Mediterranean.

As the country's tourism sector continues to grow and enjoy the status of the country's major foreign exchange earner, not much has been said on how industry players are going to enhance the cruise ship tourism business locally.

Pressure is mounting on Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) - the parastatal bestowed with the responsibility of handling all ships that arrive in the country-to come up with strategies on how to invest in the sector at the port.

KPA plans to upgrade and dedicate berth 1 to the cruise ships, and later construct other berths plus a modern facility at Dongo Kundu to facilitate the trade.

Such and other earlier elaborate plans were incorporated in the KPA's master plan. KPA was then seen as moving to position itself and stamp its presence in the stiff competition over the business segment in the world.

Currently, other international ports are reaping substantially from the trade.

If the plans mooted by KPA could have gone on well, then the East African countries could have joined the ranks of South Africa, port of Durban to Cape Town via the Indian Ocean Islands of Seychelles, Comoros, Mauritius and Madagascar.

But after KPA returned from a fact-finding mission in Miami, which is also famed in cruise ship business, the plans of enhancing the venture changed after the port realised that it would not be the direct beneficiary.

Before its retraction from its earlier assertion that it was geared towards turning the port of Mombasa into a preferred cruise ship destination, it was upbeat that by the year 2006 it would have acquired a development partner to assist it in undertaking constructions at some berths.

It is two years now and the parastatal is yet to even see interest from any quarters and it is now turning the heat to the Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) and the Municipal Council of Mombasa, urging then to chip in as they are the direct beneficiaries of tourism. KPA says investors who had shown interest failed to turn up after they realised that the project had very minimal direct benefits to them.

"Other than the ships, as KPA we would not benefit anything. So we have been fishing for a development partner to join hands with us so that we could undertake the plan but no one is willing because they know its not economically viable," says a senior KPA manager who sought not to be mentioned.

The manager says that even the players currently perceived as the largest beneficiary of the business are not keen in investing in the sub sector.

Due to the unreliable business gains from cruise ship tourism, even cities like Miami are making minimal infrastructure investment to the sub sector.

Statistics provided by KPA paints a grim picture on the trends that the sub sector has been taking with the numbers of tourist arriving through the sea not showing any significant increase.

The manager says that the parastatal was only entitled to charge ship levy and not the tourists hence the Coast community and the hotel industry would be the biggest beneficiaries.

"At least we took first step by employing a consultant to oversee the intended construction of berth no 1. But I can tell you that KPA would not single handedly construct that discharging point because it is not the ultimate beneficiary. What is there is that tourism bodies should partner with us or we forget about the project," he said.