The experience cruise tour has grown remarkably in recent years into a high-end industry with great driving effects. More than 20 thousand tourists in Jiangsu province took a cruise for outbound travel last year.
Cruise building is the first link of the cruise economy. According to the Cruise Lines International Association, more than 20 new ships costing around US$ one billion will be launched by 2014 with added value far exceeding traditional cargo ships. Jiangsu shipyard occupying 10% of global shipbuilding total amount, however, is kept out of this lucrative business.
Nanjing government is planning to build up a cruise home port and preliminarily selected new Shengwei port at the downstream of Second Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge as the site. Cruise terminals are usually divided into home ports, ports of call and route node ports. Economic benefit that a home port produces can be more than ten times that of a port of call brings.
Nanjing needs to upgrade its tourist hardware and software, which should be set as a medium and long-term goal. The related units should work out more measures to attract cruises docking during peak tourist season, make breakthroughs by setting up “Transit Without Visa” and duty-free shop, solicit more tourists through various means and exploit more cruise lines.
