Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said yesterday much more needed to be done for Keelung Port so that it could be transformed into a cruise ship harbor.
“We have to ask ourselves if Keelung is beautiful enough to lure tourists arriving via cruise ships,” Liu said, adding that improving tourism infrastructure around the harbor needed joint efforts by different government agencies.
Liu said the cruise ship business in Asia was expected to grow from 1.07 million passengers in 2005 to 1.54 million next year.
More international cruise ship operators have begun to invest resources in Asia and are eager to seize the golden opportunity presented by the launch of cross-strait transportation, he said.
“Keelung is at the center of the northeast Asian shipping route and is the gateway to many tourist attractions in northern Taiwan,” Liu said. “It has the potential to become a hub for international cruise ships.”
To become a cruise ship harbor, however, Liu said the docks had to be restructured to accommodate international and cross-strait ships.
Liu made the remarks in an address at a seminar on the cruise ship tourism market, which was held on a 52,000-tonne Italian-flagged ship that stopped at Keelung yesterday.
Besides the Italian-flagged ship, three more cruise ships were docked in Keelung yesterday, a record for the port.
MORE TOURISTS
Tourism Bureau statistics show that the number of tourists arriving via international cruises increased from about 6,600 in 2005 to 43,000 last year.
The number of cruise ships stopping at Taiwan, including Keelung and Kaohsiung, also rose from 11 to 36.
Tourists arriving via cruises in the first five months of this year already topped 52,000, while the number of cruise ships stopping by jumped to 43.
Jean Chang (李張玉琴), president of the Golden Foundation Tours Corp, talked about the company's experience in handling tour groups arriving on cruises.
Chang said “about 40 percent bought package tours, while more than 50 percent chose to check things out themselves.
“We hope the Keelung City Government could help provide tour options for these tourists. The city itself also needs a 'facelift,' such as improving its road signs,” she said.
Many, however, questioned if cruise ship tourism could help the nation, since a majority of the visitors only stop in Taiwan for a day.
“You can't judge the effectiveness of a tour arrangement by how much tourists buy,” Tourism Bureau Director-General Janice Lai (賴瑟珍) said. “If these tourists like what they see in Taiwan, they are likely to tell their friends and come back next time via plane.”
Leo Liu (劉晨軍), Asia-Pacific operations general manager of Costa Crociere in Shanghai, said the company was considering deploying more cruise ships between Hong Kong and Taipei amid the growth in cross-strait transportation.
The cross-strait agreement states that ships that fly neither the Taiwanese nor the Chinese flag must stop at a third area first, with a majority choosing to transit in Hong Kong.
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