Cruise visitors double - but more are wanted
Tourism Board says opening of Kai Tak Cruise Terminal has boosted passenger numbers in first nine months of year to almost 300,000
The Tourism Board is encouraging cruise companies to deploy more vessels to Hong Kong after passenger numbers more than doubled in the first nine months of the year.
The number of cruise passengers who set off from, arrived at or stopped off in Hong Kong from January to September was 294,075, the board said, citing Immigration Department figures, up from 136,000 for the same period last year. The figures were revealed as the Convention and Exhibition Centre hosted the Cruise Shipping Asia-Pacific trade show. They do not include day trips on casino ships.
The dramatic increase followed the opening of the controversial Kai Tak Cruise Terminal in June last year. The HK$8.2 billion terminal was designed to accommodate the world's biggest cruise ships, but has been criticised for its remote location after standing empty for much of its first year as most cruise companies preferred the better connected Ocean Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui.
A survey by the board of 3,500 people in Hong Kong and six mainland cities, indicated a strong interest in cruising. Some 70 per cent of young people would consider a cruise, along with half of the families polled.
From those figures, the board extrapolated that 19 million people in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Pearl River Delta region could potentially join a cruise from the city's two terminals each year, said Anthony Lau Chun-hon, the board's executive director.
Lau said the survey pointed to differences between Asian and Western cruise travellers.