Following the success of its initial four-night cruise itinerary from the Chinese city of Yantai to destinations in South Korea, next month Bohai Ferry will launch its second route, from Shanghai to Taiwan, on its only vessel Zhong Hua Tai Shan. Alan Lam reports.
The company, which has plans to acquire a second cruise ship, is keen to cash in on the cruise boom in Shanghai and Taiwan, which is currently one of the most popular destinations for Chinese tourists.
Launching a cruise from Shanghai means that Bohai Ferry will expand its operation from a secondary cruise port in China to the premier port of the country, a port that expects its cruise passenger number to reach beyond one million this year - the first Chinese port to do so. It will also mean adding capacity to the increasingly crowded Shanghai cruise harbour.
Yet it seems that Shanghai will have no trouble in absorbing new capacities, nor will Bohai Ferry have problem filing its ship. In the first three quarters of this year, the city’s cruise passenger throughput reached over 972,000, representing a year-on-year increase of 61.6%. A big proportion of this number can be attributed to cruises involving Taiwan as a destination.
However, this decision, in a booming cruise business of the region, is not without its obstacles: after much behind-the-scene lobbying effort, the industry has failed to secure visa-on-arrival advantage for Chinese cruise passengers arriving in Taiwan. The authority in Taiwan, which is normally very relaxed about visitors from other countries, made a conscious decision not to allow this privilege to be extended to Chinese visitors from the Mainland.
On the other hand, the Chinese government is reportedly looking into extending the 72-hour visa exemption scheme to the cruise industry. But it is not clear, at this stage, if Taiwanese visitors will be included in this plan. In the past two years, the programme has been available to visitor arriving by air to a number of major cities in China, including Shanghai, Beijing, and Dalian
