A brand new marketing partnership is expected to give a boost to the fly-cruise segment of Singapore, ushering in profits amounting to nearly $26 million in tourism revenue.
The Royal Caribbean International has announced this news on Monday.
The partnership between Changi Airport Group, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and Royal Caribbean would be promoting the cruising segment of Singapore on the ships of Royal Caribbean like Voyager of the Seas and Ovation of the Seas.
These ships would be capable of accommodating 4,269 and 4,905 guests respectively and they are among the largest in the region of Asia.
About 45,000 tourists would be flying in to Singapore to sail on these two cruise vessels between March and June 2017, as per the account of the cruise operator. In addition to the 65,000 overseas guests are estimated to sail on another of the ships of the cruise line named Mariner of the Seas in the period between October 2016 and March 2017.
This marks the second partnership among the three.
The very first partnership had been since August 2015 with an aim to market the Mariner of the Seas. It is expected to usher in as many as 1,70,000 fly-cruise tourists to Singapore over three years. The number of tourists that the partnership has attracted in its very first year has been much beyond the annual visitor target by more than 40%, as per Royal Caribbean.
Royal Caribbean is all set to have its longest deployment in Singapore between 2017 and 2019, with 72 sailings that are lined up for its 2017 to 2018 season, according to the cruise operator.
The largest cruise vessel of Asia known as the Ovation of the Seas was docked at Marina Bay Cruise Centre for its first season in Singapore. It will comprise 10 sailings to destinations including the Chinese port city of Tianjin, Bangkok and so on. This ship would continue to be docked here for the rest of this season.
This 18-deck cruise ship possess an observation capsule that rises to over 90 metres over the ocean and also involves skydiving.
Annie Chang, the cruise director of STB commented that the new partnership marks the second collaboration with Royal Caribbean International and the Changi Airport Group.
The official statistics portray that the cruise passenger numbers increased by 16% to about 12 million in the year 2016.
