China's first domestically made large cruise ship Adora Magic City starts first commercial voyage from Wusongkou International Cruise Terminal in Shanghai on January 1, 2024. Photo: VCG

China's second domestically built large cruise ship will use Port of Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong Province as its home port, with a focus on tapping China's southern market, a move that will integrate the cruise economy with local commercial sectors, tourism and culture, CSSC Cruise Technology Development said on Tuesday.

As a result, relevant products and designs will adopt the Lingnan culture and elements from the Maritime Silk Road, said the company.

As a crucial node of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the Pearl River Delta, Guangzhou has major advantages as a frontier of opening-up and important platform for facilitating exchanges between China and overseas markets. The city also has relatively high consumption demand and well-developed maritime economy, Zhang Yi, CEO of iiMedia Research Institute, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Since the Adora Magic City started commercial operation on January 1, 2024, the cruise ship has completed 37 voyages and received more than 150,000 passengers as of June 7, China Media Group reported. 

Zhang said that the recovering cruise market will be a major engine propelling the development of the culture and tourism sectors, while attracting more global travelers. 

He noted that the cruise experience itself is still a relatively new and fresh travel format for many Chinese tourists, and the more engaging experience and diverse shopping patterns will help stimulate consumption for involved sectors. 

China's cruise market saw a robust recovery in the first half of 2024, with 206 voyages operated by 23 cruise ships that carried 500,000 passengers, according to media reports earlier. 

Passenger occupancy has returned to about 50 percent of the level in the same period in 2019, while the data in the second quarter outstripped that of the first quarter by nearly 60 percent.

The second homegrown cruise ship had entered the final assembly phase in April as it docked at the No.2 dock of its builder Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co. 

In comparison with the Adora Magic City, the new ship is larger, at 141,900 tons. It has a length of 341 meters, a width of 37.2 meters and 2,144 cabins. The Adora Magic City is 323.6 meters in length, has a gross weight of 135,500 tons and can accommodate up to 5,246 passengers across a total of 2,125 guest rooms.

The construction of the cruise ships brought together 500 suppliers from around the world, which established a robust cruise supply chain and laid a solid foundation for the mass production of large cruise ships. 

The new cruise ship is expected to leave the dock by March 2026, and be delivered to the customer by the end of that year.


Global Times