In recent years, the development of Guangzhou Nansha’s cruise tourism has been in fully swing. According to statistics, from 2016 to 2018, the number of inbound and outbound cruise voyages and passengers of Nansha port maintained the third place in China. From January to July 2019, Nansha received 264,700 passengers and 52 cruise ships, ranking second place in the country, and will keep a good development trend.
Since 2018, Nansha has launched several cruise promotion activities. From July to August this year, Nansha’s representatives went to Foshan, Chaozhou, Shaoguan (Guangdong’s three cities) and Chengdu (which is in Sichuan Province and known as the “Land of Abundance”) to promote cruise tourism and cooperate with local famous scenic spots to develop the “Cruise + High-speed Railway + Scenic Area” new travel choice. When customers plan to take a cruise from Nansha, they could choose the waiting mode of “Scenic + Cruise”. During the waiting time, people could visit Nansha Tianhou Palace, Nansha Wetland Park and other featured attractions to add more content to the trip.
At present, the Nansha Cruise Home Port has opened 9 routes to Hongkong, Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines, and has developed 12 cruise destinations. The number of its cruise route destinations ranks top in the country, it has the largest number of cruise routes to Southeast Asia in mainland China, and the number is increasing. In late August, Nansha District and Malaysia's Penang State signed a cooperation memorandum on cruise tourism to jointly promote the opening of the new “Belt and Road” cruise route from Penang Swettenham Pier Cruise Terminal to Guangzhou Nansha International Cruise Home Port. Soon afterwards, passengers can take a luxury cruise trip directly from Nansha to Penang, which is one of the top ten coastal resorts in the world.
On August 28th, the Chinese version of the Berlitz Cruising & Cruise Ships was first introduced. The book compares nearly 300 cruise ships around the world in five major aspects: hardware, accommodation, catering, service and cruise experience (a total of 20 scoring standards), and selects “the world's top ten best large cruise ships” with a capacity of more than 2,500. It is gratifying that the “Genting Dream” and “World Dream” by Dream Cruises with Nansha as their home port both score 1659, tie for 7th place, and receive 4.5 star rating. They are the only two cruise ships on the top ten list that operate in Asia. On the afternoon of November 17, “World Dream” will begin a “6 days and 5 nights Da Nang + Halong Bay” cruise tour from Nansha, if you are interested to experience the cruise ship, you can visit the website of Dream Cruises to register.
With the opening of the 14th China Cruise Shipping Conference and International Cruise Expo (CCS14) in Guangzhou and the opening of the brand new Nansha International Cruise Home Port, Nansha’s cruise tourism will set off a new upsurge and develop more new routes in the future.