Chinese cruise tourism one of the most important tourism sector and to be the next frontier for Chinese travel and tourism industry, has now slowed down.
The Chinese cruise tourism business has rose by a staggering 70 percent in year-over-year growth from 2013-2016.
Both in anticipation and in response to the staggering growth in China’s cruise market, there are major cruise lines entered into a wide variety of joint ventures and strategic partnerships in China, as well as started the construction of purpose-built cruise ships for the Chinese market.
By 2020, the China’s Ministry of Transport expects that there are around 4.5 million Chinese cruise passengers, which albeit representing close to 100 percent growth from 2017’s figure of 2.8 million, still means substantially slowed year-over-year growth.
While on the contrary, with the industry expectations, it looks like cruising is falling out of favour with Chinese tourists both faster and more dramatically than even the most bearish take on China’s cruise industry.
According to the recent survey, the Chinese cruise industry is balanced for a drop by 14.3 percent in 2018—with cruise travellers declining from last year’s 2.8 million down to 2.4 million travelers in 2018. But in the last year, the to boost the tourism, Chinese cruise developed its new route to Vietnam.
There are major cruise operators have been quick in their response to the cooling Chinese cruise market.
The sudden decline of China cruise industry isn’t only a setback for international cruise operators, but also the Chinese government which had lofty ambitions for a “made in China” cruise and shipbuilding industry.
The boom years in Chinese cruise industry resulted in international cruise operators deploying substantial resources in the China market.
The cruises were relocated to China, repurposed for China, and even purpose-built for the China market. Today, the market of China is overflowing with cruise ships with varying degrees of China adaptations, leading to downward price pressures, but also the aforementioned withdrawal of some of the ships less adapted for the Chinese market.
