Alan Lam reporting
On 8 December, Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport & Tourism (MLIT) together with Costa Asia celebrated the 1,000,000th cruise passenger to Japan in 2015 arriving onboard Costa Serena at Hakata Port.
The Ministry hosted a special ceremony to welcome Zhang Yifan and his family from Hangzhou, China, and Captain Giulio Valestra of Costa Serena, attended by a delegation of Japanese government officials. The event marked the first time one million cruise passengers had sailed into Japan within one calendar year.
Kiyoshi Ejima, Parliamentary Vice Minister of MLIT, and Soichiro Takashima, Mayor of Fukushima City, presided over the event at Hakata Port in Fukuoka.
“It’s wonderful that visitors have the opportunity to travel on a cruise liner around the Japan islands and to our port towns,” said Kiyoshi Ejima. “We had originally set a target of one million inbound visitors by 2020. So it is very exciting to see this target being met five years ahead of schedule.”
“Overseas visitors to Fukuoka make a major contribution to the local economy, said Soichiro Takashima. “The more lenient luggage allowance enjoyed by cruise passengers gives them free rein to shop as much as they like. We will continue to enhance our local infrastructures in order to ensure the best possible experience for both cruise passengers visiting Fukuoka and local residents. The opening of the new cruise centre this year has been a major advance in that direction and I’m excited to see what more we can achieve together.”
“My team and I are excited and honoured to send the first-ever 1,000,000th cruise ship passenger into Japan,” said Buhdy Bok, Costa Group Asia President. “This is a remarkable achievement for the Japanese tourism industry.”
In Japan this has been deemed as a “record-breaking milestone in Japanese tourism”.
In addition, Costa has also sharpened its focus on the Japanese source market. It has recently announced that it is to operate turnaround cruises out of Fukuoka, Maizuru and Kanazawa for Japanese guests in Summer 2016, using the 1996-built Costa Victoria.
