Top Biz News
China to receive much more cruise ship visits this year
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-01-22 13:56
 |
Large Medium Small |
China's cruise economy kept growing as liner departures from and visits to Chinese harbors increased steadily in 2009, industry insider said Friday.
China Cruise and Yacht Industry Association told Xinhua Friday that China's cruise ship market will grow rapidly this year with liner visits expected to rise by a big margin. But it declined to reveal detailed predictions, only estimating that all-year cruise ship visits to Shanghai alone will reach 120 for 2010.
According to the association, cruise ship departures from China's coastal cities numbered 80 in 2009, a growth of 38 percent over the 2008 level; and cruise ship visits at such cities numbered 76. But the industry organization did not reveal the year-on-year change figure for the visits.
The association took Shanghai as an example. Last year the city recorded a 17-pecent year-on-year growth in number of international cruise ship visits and a 83-percent growth in number of human exits and entries by liners.
In 2009, people traveling aboard international cruise ship from the Chinese mainland numbered 200,000. Plus those Chinese getting on liners from China's Hong Kong, and from countries such as Singapore, the United States and Europe, the Chinese cruise passengers numbered 350,000 to 380,000 last year, in comparison with the less than 10,000 level in 2008.
| ||||
To date, such leading international cruise liners as Royal Caribbean, Costa and MSC Cruise, have set up representative offices in the mainland.
According to the industry association, three groups of harbors tailored to cruise ships have taken shape along China's coast. They are harbors along the rim of the Bohai Bay and at the coast line of the Yangtze River Delta; those along the rim of Beibu Bay and at the coast line of the Pearl River Delta; and those along the western coast of the Taiwan Strait and around the Taiwan island.
Xiao Baojia, a cruise economy expert in Shanghai, said China would attract more and more attention from international cruise companies with its geological advantages, abundant tourism resources and huge market potentials.
