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Chinese passenger numbers forecast to reach 10m by 2030: EID

时间：2017-11-14阅读次数：
By Chu Daye Source:Global Times


                    
                                   Chinese tourists on a cruise tour heading to Danang, Vietnam Photo: IC
 
 
As Chinese cruise tourist numbers get set to reach 2.6 million this year, market analysts share their perspectives on the growing domestic cruise tourism market with the Global Times. However, concerns over industry sustainability and warnings about cruise port excess from experts have begun to loom.
 
On July 21, 2016, five luxury cruise ships carrying 17,000 Chinese tourists arrived at several of Japan's ports all in one day. 
 
Local governments and travel companies from Fukuoka, Okinawa and Nagasaki - Japan's ports of call - were so surprised by the purchasing power of Chinese tourists that traditional Japanese drum performances were specially arranged to welcome the influx of Chinese tourists at Fukuoka port, where two of the five cruise ships brought passengers in the thousands. 
 
This scene is just one footnote of China's newly discovered cruise obsession. Almost nonexistent just a decade ago, the cruise business is now thriving. 
 
Booming industry
 
The cruise tourism industry, with its outreaching industrial chain, significant effect on infrastructure and ability to boost employment, is now perceived by the Chinese government as the engine of a consumption-driven economy.
 
In 2016, China became the world's 8th largest cruise tourist-generating country, with the outbound number of cruise tourists exceeding 2 million, according to data published by the China Cruise & Yacht Industry Association. And that figure is expected to reach 2.6 million this year.
 
As of the end of 2016, 18 cruise ships capable of accommodating 42,000 guests in total designated Chinese ports as their homes. 
 
Ctrip, a leading Chinese online travel agency (OTA) listed on the NASDAQ, is among nearly a dozen China-based platforms that offer booking services for cruise trips. The company also has a 35 percent stake in domestic cruise operator SkySea Holding International in cooperation with Royal Caribbean International, a deal inked in 2014.
 
The Chinese cruise market has been rapidly developing over the last 11 years, and in three stages, according to a statement Ctrip sent to the Global Times on Tuesday. 
 
"From 2006 to 2010, the market featured small-sized cruise ships carrying high-end customers. In 2010, the arrival of Royal Caribbean International's "Legend of the Seas", a ship with a tonnage of 70,000, ushered in the era of middle-sized cruised ships," the statement said. 
 
"Then, in 2015, the market witnessed new highs with multiple events - cruise tourism became a full-year activity, the industry served 2 million tourists for the first time and ships with tonnages of 10,000 and more foreign cruise operators such as Princess Cruises and MSC entered the Chinese market. In addition to those, the first domestic luxury cruise ship operator debuted its global voyage."
 
According to data provided by Ctrip, the number of tourists on its platform jumped by 40 percent year-on-year during July and August of this year. Strong growth was particularly driven by passengers who were children under age 12 and adults under age 39.
 
This year has seen 50 percent annual growth in the number of customers from China's inland provinces, indicating that the market in non-coastal areas is gradually being tapped, the OTA said. 
 
A statement posted on the website of the China National Tourism Administration in July hailed the upcoming decade as a "golden decade" for the market, in which the Asian cruise market is set to surpass that of the US. 
 
Insiders expect the number of Chinese cruise tourists to exceed 5 million by 2020 and reach 10 million by 2030, according to a report published by the Economic Information Daily (EID) on August 17.
 
Sustainability concerns
 
However, amid the growing market trend, insiders claim that high fees are triggering competitiveness and development imbalances between home ports, which could hinder the sustainability of the new and emerging industry. 
 
Tong Jianfeng, a senior manager at Royal Caribbean International, a leading cruise firm, was quoted in the EID report as saying that the cost of taking berth at Chinese ports is three times the cost at European ports and four to six times the cost at US ones.
 
At the same time, the inbound and outbound cruise tours' growths are asymmetric. The outbound trips have grown significantly while the inbound trips have remained unchanged. Accordingly, this has caused the economic contribution of the cruise industry to become lopsided, driving the consumption at overseas destinations but less so at Chinese ports where the ships stop by, the EID report said. 
 
There is also an over-reliance on Japanese and South Korean cruise destinations, which accounted for over 85 percent of all cruise tour stop offerings and are usually short excursions of up to six nights, the report said.
 
Zheng Ping, chief analyst of industry news site chineseport.cn, said the Chinese cruise ship market is still fledgling and filled with imperfections. 
 
He told the Global Times Tuesday that it would be impractical to demand the Chinese ports to be like their overseas counterparts and recommend an absolute balance between outbound and inbound tourist numbers and spending.
 
"A lot of global ports had recouped investment long before so they could accommodate visiting ships at low or no cost. Besides this, different Chinese localities have invested huge amounts of money in recent years in port facilities, so it is natural that they charge higher fees in the hope of getting back their investment," Zheng noted. 
 
On the other hand, China is the chief market for cruise operators; many of them are flocking to China to establish their base ports, so ports don't feel the pressure to drop service fees, according to Zheng.
 
On imbalance, Zheng said that China's large population base makes it the world's top tourist-generating country and that no other countries can compete with it in terms of tourist numbers. Thus, he opined that demanding inbound travel to match up with outbound travel is impractical and almost impossible.
 
Shifting market trends
 
Ctrip said China's cruise tourism market is constantly changing with time.
 
Before 2011, customers mainly chose cruise trips out of pure curiosity and the attention was focused more on the ships and the experience they provided. 
 
"From 2012 to 2016, as cruise trips won favoritism from the masses, ships, however, were more or less used as mere transport vehicles and attention was directed to ports of call and the itineraries," the Ctrip statement said.    
 
Then, starting from the second half of 2016, tourists began to chase after more diverse vacation experiences with a wider range of destinations and cruise experiences. 
 
Ctrip's statement said a sharp refocus to cruises in the tourism industry means operators have to beef up their onboard services in terms of entertainment, catering, shopping, sports, and technology features.
 
Itineraries tailored for parents with children saw bookings increase by over 600 percent year-on-year during July and August of this year, the company said.
 
"Market participants act like a swarm of bees, and there is concern over excess. As the industry is a nascent one - and many of the investments, ports, and operators today have to prove themselves in the days to come - the broad Chinese market needs to prove whether the excess of cruise ports is overcompensating demand," Zheng said.