The international cruise ship routes at doorstep are restarting. From June 29th, Royal Caribbean Cruises will release and launch international cruise routes from Shanghai to neighboring countries from April next year. The super-large luxury international cruise ship Spectrum of the Seas designed for Chinese consumers of all ages will return to China and arrange for 48 cruise holiday routes to Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Nagasaki, Kagoshima and Okinawa ranging between 4 to 7 nights. To this end, Royal Caribbean offers a preferential price for “early birds”.

Royal Caribbean is the first top international cruise enterprise to return to the Chinese market after the national transportation authorities issued a pilot program for the resumption of international cruise ships and the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government adopted a three-year action plan to promote the high-quality development of cruise economy.

Returning in eager anticipation, the floating resort will offer abundant cruise experience.

Dr. Liu Yinan, senior vice president of Royal Caribbean Group and chairman of Asia, said, “Since January this year, many consumers have repeatedly asked when the Spectra of the Seas will return.” 

Super luxury cruise ships can be described as “floating resorts”, which have led the development of the mainstream market of modern cruise ships in the past decades. The essence of the concept of super-large cruise ship is to make use of the ever-expanding huge hull space to accommodate all kinds of creative guest rooms, restaurants, entertainment, sports, shopping and parent-child facilities to the maximum extent, and provide unique holiday options for every holidaymaker of varied ages. Royal Avenue on the Spectra of the Seas is the largest duty-free shopping street on the sea, with the latest styles of first-line, high-end and trendy brands of watches, jewelry, bags, cosmetics and other commodities.

It has gathered a group of cruise headquarters enterprises and received 2.7 million tourists annually. 

The previously released Shanghai Action Plan for Promoting the High-quality Development of International Cruise Economy (2023-2025) clearly stated that “Wusongkou, Baoshan strives to build a cruise operation headquarters base with global resource allocation capability and a Shanghai International Cruise Tourism Resort with the theme of Cruises, Pleasure-boats and Yachts”.

To fully support cruise enterprises to speed up the resumption of operations and accelerate the development and growth of the cruise industry, Baoshan has also formulated and issued the Baoshan Implementation Plan for Promoting the High-quality Development of International Cruise Economy (2023-2025)(hereinafter referred to as Baoshan Implementation Plan), based on the first-mover advantage of Baoshan cruise economic development, focusing on the follow-up high-quality development layout and key points, and clarifying the development goal of Baoshan cruise economy: by 2025, 3 billion yuan of project development investment will be realized, and 300,000 m2 of culture and tourism complex will be built; it will cater 300 international cruise ships every year and receive 2.7 million tourists every year; it will gather a group of cruise headquarters enterprises, among which at least one competitive local cruise brand; the scale of local procurement of cruise ships will continue to expand, and the proportion of domestic ships serving international routes will increase to about 30%.

The Baoshan Implementation Plan also proposes to create the development layout of “one district, one port and two highlands” and 18 work measures. Baoshan will make every effort to build Shanghai International Cruise Resort with international cruise characteristics and the maritime gateway brand, build Asia’s largest cruise home port with efficient operation, explore the construction of cruise industry hot land and cruise ecological innovation highland, expand cruise economic industrial chain, enhance the contribution of cruise development to the regional economy, and continue to lead the innovation and development of China’s cruise economy.

Baoshan will integrate culture, tourism and business, elevating the “passing-by economy” to “industrial chain economy”.

It is understood that Shanghai International Cruise Resort has been included in the Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Northern and Southern Transformation and Development. At present, Baoshan is promoting the construction of key projects in an all-round way.

The civil works of Yuejianghui Project has been completed on June 30th this year. The project is close to the largest cruise port in Asia, and will build an urban complex integrating theme business, resort hotels and cruise-pleasure-boat-yachts headquarters base. The civil works of the Fashion Long Beach Commercial District Project will be completed by the end of this year. The overall layout includes “one street, two corridors and two areas”. It integrates Long Beach Sightseeing Tower, Long Beach Concert Hall, five-star hotels, serviced apartment clusters and jiangtun commercial complex, and will become a one-stop cultural tourism business complex. The Yangtze River Estuary Water Sports Experience Center project is planned to become the largest berthing, training, competition and experience base for sailing boats and yachts in Shanghai, which is undergoing preliminary formalities and becoming the unique starting base for aquatic  consumption products in Shanghai. The renovation and upgrading project of tourism supporting facilities in the resort (Phase I) is promoting the upgrading of the main entrance landscape of the resort, the landscape along the Suitang River and the landscape of Yuejianghui section in an orderly manner.