to sign up for our newsletter
News
RCCL boss sees Chinese market growing 66 percent this year
Mumbai: Goa welcomed a total of 4,058,226 domestic and foreign tourists in 2014, a 30% increase year-on-year.
Shri Ameya Abhyankar, the local director of tourism, said, “The statistical graph showing a 30% increase in tourist ar...
Bangkok: The government of Myanmar is looking to welcome a significant jump in tourists this year. Htay Aung, the minister of hotels and tourism, has said the aim is to crack the 5m mark this year, a big jump from 2014’s 3.08m figu...
Dubai: The Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM) has begun issuing multiple-entry visas to cruise tourists visiting the UAE from China and India.
The DCTCM expects the new multi-entry visas to increase the l...
Hong Kong: More details have emerged of yesterday’s big announcement of two cruise joint ventures between Carnival and China Merchants. As the world’s top two cruise brands – Carnival and Royal Caribbean – fight it out for Ch...
Abu Dhabi: Fred Olsen Cruise Lines’ biggest cruise liner, MS Balmoral, has made its first call at Zayed Port, marking an uptick in cruise traffic to Abu Dhabi.
The vessel is the fourth vessel to make its maiden call into Zayed s...
Manila: The province of Bohol in the central Visayas region of the Philippines is to welcome the international cruiseship M/S Europa 2 belonging Hapag-Lloyd today.
This will be the third time that the ship has visited the port. Th...
Hanoi: Hanoi-based investment firm, Openasia, has acquired the 37-cabin Emeraude cruiseship and launched a series of upgrades on the ship to improve the passenger experience in Halong Bay.
Beijing: The north Chinese cruise port of Tianjin is adding a second boarding bridge at the cruise terminal this year to further improve passenger and ships handling capacity.
The second cruise boarding bridge is to help the port ...
Hanoi: Vietnam is expecting to welcome more cruise tourists from China this year, and is looking to provide more cruise travel products and increase convenience to Chinese tourists.
Local cruise tourism industry players are callin...
Site Sponsor
Introduction
Asia is the most exciting region for the cruise shipping industry with year-on-year growth in passenger numbers of more than 20% since 2007. In the next three years the number of Asians expected to take a cruise will double.
To harness this growth the major lines are deploying larger and larger ships in the region, while Asian port cities are vying with one another for ever more impressive cruise facilities.
Asia Cruise News, part of Singapore-headquartered Asia Shipping Media, has reporters in place from Dubai to Tokyo to cover this exciting, fast emerging area. Contained on the site are daily news stories drawn from our network of 18 journalists as well as more in depth features in our In Focus section. A hard copy cruise annual publication is also envisaged as part of the Asia Cruise News portfolio of products.
Movements
In Focus
Chinese yards enter the fray
The People’s Republic has moved a step closer to building its first cruiseship
Cruiseships are the Holy Grail for shipbuilders, something that have largely eluded Asian shipyards with the exception of Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries on/off flirting with the sector. Cruiseships costs hundreds of millions of dollars to build, require extremely diverse and competent subcontractors and suppliers and take years to perfect. To date they have been the meat and drink of Europe’s otherwise withering shipbuilding scene. Now, however, the Chinese are ready to make an impact.
State-run China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) has announced plans to develop China’s first self-built cruise ship together with the world leading cruise operator Carnival and the Italian shipyard Fincantieri.
Hu Wenming, president of CSSC, is confident his firm can get the job done.
CSSC’s own ship design arm, CSSC Shanghai Merchant Ship Design & Research Institute (SDARI), is working to get plans together.
“As the major shipbuilding conglomerate in China, we should not be satisfied with building the traditional ships like bulk carriers, containerships, and tankers, the cruise market in China is huge and it is a wise step of the company to get into,” an official from the R&D department of SDARI tells Asia Cruise News, “We believe we have the ability to complete the development and construction of a luxury cruiseship, although it might take five or 10 years, maybe even longer.”
China is the fastest growing cruise market in the world and there is increasing demand fo ... More>>
