Ringing in '24 on high seas — cruise trend to lift travel industry

Going on a cruise to ring in the New Year — that is the new in thing for many Chinese travelers; and international cruise operators plan to ride this trend in 2024 and continue increasing their investments in China to meet growing demand and realize the tremendous growth potential.

For the New Year's holiday period, cruise bookings have been robust, market insiders said. Voyages that will depart from home ports such as Shanghai, Tianjin and Shenzhen in Guangdong province have doubled relative to the same period of 2020, according to Trip.com Group, China's leading online travel agency.

"Next year, cruise trips that depart from the port of Shanghai are foreseen to rebound to pre-COVID levels of 2019, and the supply of related travel products in the domestic market will return to 70 percent of 2019 levels," said Liu Zinan, senior vice-president and chairman of Asia at Royal Caribbean Group, a cruise operator.

Amid a rapid recovery, the Chinese cruise market is seeing some changes. Before 2020, international brands dominated the Chinese cruise travel market. Now, domestic cruise ship operators are taking a growing market share, Liu said.

"The emergence of diversified industry players has been a good phenomenon. Fair and healthy industry competition will contribute to the further development of China's cruise industry," he said.

Despite COVID-19's negative impact on the global cruise tourism market, the sector is on a steady recovery track.

In 2024, the global cruise tourism market is expected to witness 35.7 million passenger trips, exceeding the level seen in 2019.The figure is higher than 31.5 million passenger trips recorded in 2023, the Cruise Lines International Association forecast.

US cruise line operator Royal Caribbean plans to launch four- to seven-night trips from Shanghai to multiple Japanese destinations in April.

Norwegian cruise line operator Viking Cruises said it plans to offer four river cruises to serve the Chinese market in 2024. By 2028, 12 vessels will serve the river cruise segment of the Chinese market, it said.

Viking Cruises also plans to restart inbound cruises in China next year. It will provide inbound tourists options to go sight-seeing at beautiful spots in the country. It will thus help contribute to the high-quality development of the inbound tourism market in China, the company said.

China's travel market has seen a strong recovery this year, market sources said. Booking volumes of domestic flight tickets hit a historic high, significantly exceeding the level seen in 2019, according to Qunar, a Beijing-based online travel agency.

Booking volumes of hotels in some popular Chinese cities jumped 110 percent this year over the 2019 level. Travelers from all age groups are enthusiastic about going on trips, driving the growth of consumption in different cities, Qunar found.

"China's tourism sector is expected to embrace a golden growth period of 10 to 20 years, and this year has served as a start," said Ren Fen, vice-president of Qunar.