China's cruise industry set for full steam ahead due to tourism boom

As China's middle class continues to grow, so too does its appetite for taking a short vacation on the ocean waves, reports Shi Jing in Shanghai.

The New York skyline is seen in a distance as Royal Caribbean's Explorer of the Seas enters New York harbour Jan 29, 2014. [Photo/Agencies]

The surging growth of the Chinese cruise industry, in what is a remarkably short time, has attracted not only a rising number of local companies, but also interest from global industry leaders who are expressing their full confidence in the sector continuing to burgeon.

It was only in late 2012 that HNA Tourism Cruise and Yacht Management Co Ltd was created to become the first of its kind in the Chinese mainland. It now owns the largest cruise ship operating in the country.

In March last year, Yantai-based Bohai Ferry Co Ltd in Shandong province bought a vessel from the Italian company Costa Crociere SpA, and entered that into the Chinese market five months later.

The two companies are the highest-profile of a growing local fleet of firms now vying for business.

China's largest online travel agency Ctrip.com International Ltd has even got in on the act, after buying its own cruise ship from Royal Caribbean International, the Miami-based firm that controls around 17 percent of the global market, in September last year－a move that changed its role from pure travel agency, to cruise line manager practically overnight.

According to the China Cruise Industry Development Report, released last year by the China Cruise and Yacht Industry Association, 466 cruise ships were operating in the country at the end of last year, a 14.78 percent rise on the previous year.

The number of individual customers walking onboard surged 43.36 percent to 860,000, a huge proportion (739,600) of which were Chinese travelers boarding ships at Chinese ports.

Shanghai Port International Cruise Terminal received 576,000 tourists last year, meaning it has already overtaken Singapore as the largest terminal in Asia, and the word's ninth-largest.

Experts said this growing confidence in the Chinese cruise industry is very much in parallel with the rise of the country's middle class.

According to the China Tourism Academy, China's middle class now makes up around 20 percent of the total working population, and that is expected to double over the next 20 years. And that growing middle class increasingly likes to travel, said Dai Bin, director of the academy.