By Kuang Zhanting

The new luxury cruise “World Dream” made its first voyage in Nansha,Guangzhou. The 18-storey 150,000t displacement luxury cruise taking Nansha, Guangzhou and Hong Kong as double home-ports provides three routes towards Southeast Asia.

According to statistics, three cruise lines -- Star Cruises, Star Dream Cruises and Costa Cruises -- carrying out cruise business in Nansha of Guangzhou have opened a total of eight routes. “Cloud Top Dream” under Star Dream Cruises alone accumulated 76 ship-times operation in January-November of 2017,realizing more than 270,000 persontimes passenger throughput.

As next step, Guangzhou will launch more measures and policies to promote development of the cruise industry, promote cruise industry cluster trans-boundary integrated development,continuously optimize cruise industry development environment, improve Guangzhou tourism internationalization,boost Guangzhou industry development and aim at building Guangzhou into Asia’s important cruise departure port.

Guangzhou Expedites Cruise Industry Development

The short slab problem of Guangzhou shipping high-end industry has long been a headache to the industry and the local government. With social economy development and improvement of people’s income level, tourist consumption has gradually become an important way to drive local economy and industry development; meanwhile,international shipping market and shipbuilding market variations also show the passenger ship market upturn in the persistent downturn of the shipbuilding market, enjoying development potential.Over recent years, Guangzhou has focused on development of high-end shipping industry in its strategy of building an international shipping center by taking cruise industry as a sally point.

In 2016, Nansha of Guangzhou offered berthing to 104 ship-times international cruses, entry and exit passengers reached 326,000 persontimes, and passenger throughput ranked national third. At the end of 2016,Guangzhou in its measures (“the Measures”) to speed up international cruse industry development vowed to push up cruises to 240 ship-times and cruise passenger throughput to 1 million person-times by 2020, and build Guangzhou into one of Asia’s largest cruise home-ports integrating cruise terminal, port clearance, duty-free mall,sight-seeing tour and themed hotel. In Q1 2017, Guangzhou cruise industry data also realized a rapid growth as operational inbound and outbound cruise ships and passenger throughput grew by 80% and 66.7% respectively.

However, deep level development of Guangzhou cruise industry is currently restricted by many factors.In the equipment aspect, cruise ships berthing Nansha moored alongside Nansha container terminal Phase III, as it is not a professional cruise terminal,passengers find it inconvenient to make customs clearance and embarkation and disembarkation without supporting passenger terminal facilities and services.To solve the problem, the local government authorities vigorously support construction of Nansha cruise home-port.

Total investment in Nansha cruise terminal complex reaches RMB17 billion,a 225,000 gross ton cruise berth and a 100,000 gross ton cruise berth will be built as per international standard; the terminal will realize rapid clearance of internal joint inspection, two-way clearance is designed to improve immigration inspection facility utilization rate; art exhibition and display, F&B and dutyfree mall, etc. will be introduced. Nansha cruise home-port project construction is in full swing, completion is slated for 2018 and operation for 2019, and annual passenger throughput is expected to reach 750,000 person-times by then.

Furthermore, Guangzhou cruise industry is similar to development of the national cruise industry, with various weak points in “soft power”. currently,Guangzhou cruise tourism development does not contribute much to the local economy, the cruise home-port is only used as a wharf, communication between passengers and the local economy is measly, outbound passenger growth is by far higher than inbound passengers,leading to cruise economy development floating on the surface, without due driving effect on the local economy and industry. Cruise finance, laws, talent cultivation and supplies are still in their infancy, with shortcomings in cruise management system, service quality,management procedure, and governmententerprise coordination, leaving hidden perils in future development of the cruise industry. Upstream of the cruise industry-- cruise ship design and construction --requires accelerated start-up.

Cruise Shipbuilding Just in Time

Guangzhou is expediting deployment in development of the cruise economy industrial chain. Not long ago, Guangzhou local leading travel agency -- GZL International Travel Service Ltd -- signed an overall strategic cooperation agreement with Yunding Cruise Group, further deepening cruise sector cooperation, strategically deploying high- and medium-end cruise market in an all-round way, stepping up building of “Guangzhou-HKMacau Greater Bay Area Cruise Home-Port 3h Tourism Circle” radiating from the Guangzhou home-port; using Guangzhou’s powerful high-speed rail and airplane transport radiation network to tap local characteristic tourism resources such as culture and cuisine,and building “cruise+” products such as “cruise+airplane, cruise+highspeed rail, cruise+Guangzhou landmark,cruise+high value-added”, etc.

For the equipment manufacturing industry, however, cruise design,construction and maintenance are key points of concern in the industry.Guangzhou speeding up cruise economy development will undoubtedly bring new development opportunity for the local equipment manufacturing industry. The Measures vowed to build Guangzhou into an international cruise global procurement ship supply distribution center and building and repair center, which accords with development of the Pear River Estuary Longxue Shipbuilding Base.

On March 31, 2017, China Travel Group Co Ltd and CSSC signed an overall strategic cooperation agreement in Beijing, officially initiating domestic small and medium cruise ship project cooperation. Under the strategic cooperation agreement, the two parties will give full play to respective advantages in the travel sector and the equipment industry, emphasizing on strengthening cruise industry cooperation, jointly getting through the upstream and downstream industrial chain of cruise sales, operation,design and manufacturing, driving local cruise industry development, and based on this, widening ocean tourism, high-end tourism equipment, financial investment,etc.

The equipment manufacturing task for the domestic small and medium cruise ship project rests with Guangzhou Shipyard International, the Guangzhou local time-honored shipbuilder which will totally move to the Longxue Shipbuilding Base. According to the schedule,Guangzhou Shipyard International will complete and deliver China’s first locally built and operated small and medium cruise ship by 2021 and will build CSSC passenger ship and small and medium cruise ship base; China Travel Group will build a 5-cruise fleet in 3-5 years by ship buying, building and leasing.

As China’s earliest shipbuilding enterprise entering the passenger ship/ro-ro passenger ship market, Guangzhou Shipyard International, the leading passenger ship builder in Guangzhou and China’s southern region, has built and delivered several luxury ro-ro passenger ships since 2003,including two then most advanced luxury ro-ro passenger ships in the world“VISBY” and“GOTLAND” as well as ro-ro passenger ships later built for navigation in Bohai and Nanhai areas,and accumulated abundant passenger ship building experience. In the two inprocess 1600-berth/2300m-lane dual fuel ro-ro passenger ships, the first ship“VISBORG” has been launched,delivery slated for next year. The delivery is expected to become one of the world’s most eco-friendly, fastest and most luxury ro-ro passenger ships and become a new“Pearl” in the Baltic Sea.

We learned Guangzhou Shipyard International takes passenger ship/ro-ro passenger ship products as a priority for development, plans to use the opportunity of strategic cooperation in the small and medium cruise ship market to develop a medium economy cruise of independent IPRs; will ally an overseas design institution to form ro-ro passenger ship joint venture design company, introduce overseas advanced technology, cultivate core personnel and carry out ro-ro passenger ship design and R&D.★