Ninety cruises are expected to dock in Taiwan this year, including a record 23 ships that are to visit the nation for the first time following the lifting of a ban on international cruises.
The ban was implemented in February 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Taiwan.
Following the lifting of mandatory quarantine for all overseas arrivals on Oct. 13, the Central Epidemic Command Center approved the operational guidelines for international cruise ships on Oct. 24, allowing cruise services to resume.
Photo courtesy of Taiwan International Ports Corp
Taiwan International Ports Corp chairman Lee Hsien-yi (李賢義) said 90 cruises are expected to visit Taiwan this year.
Thirty-two of the cruises would be provided by ships with home ports in Taiwan, 25 of which would be organized by the luxury line Costa Cruises, while 58 would transit through Taiwan, Lee said.
Taiwan is the second-largest cruise market in Asia after China, company general manager Kao Chwan Kai (高傳凱) said, adding that China has yet to resume its international cruise services.
As Carnival Corp’s Princess Cruises stopped using Taiwan as its home port and Hong Kong-based cruise operator Genting Hong Kong Ltd filed for bankruptcy, travel agencies have been seeking other cruise lines to come to Taiwan, he said.
Holland America Line’s MS Westerdam and Regent Seven Sea Cruises’ Seven Seas Explorer are to set off on their maiden voyages on March 6, using the Port of Kaohsiung as their home port, the port company said.
The MS Westerdam expects to have 3,000 passengers onboard, it added.
Cruises transiting through Taiwan can help boost the domestic economy, as cruise passengers often go ashore to spend money, while cruise ships that use Taiwan for home ports enable Taiwanese to spend money abroad, Kao said.
Providing tours arranged in the “fly-cruise” model, in which foreign visitors fly to Taiwan before boarding cruise ships, can further stimulate the economy, he added.
The Explorer Dream, operated by Dream Cruises, was the first cruise ship to set sail since the COVID-19 pandemic began, leaving the Port of Keelung on July 26, 2020.
The ship suspended services after Taiwan issued a level 3 nationwide COVID-19 alert in May 2021 and resumed the service after the alert was downgraded in July that year.
However, the ship left Taiwan after Dream Cruises’ parent company, Genting Hong Kong, filed for bankruptcy in March last year.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
‘JOINT SWORD’: Whatever President Lai says in his Double Ten speech, China would use it as a pretext to launch ‘punishment’ drills for his ‘separatist’ views, an official said China is likely to launch military drills this week near Taiwan, using President William Lai’s (賴清德) upcoming national day speech as a pretext to pressure the nation to accept its sovereignty claims, Taiwanese officials said. China in May launched “punishment” drills around Taiwan shortly after Lai’s inauguration, in what Beijing said was a response to “separatist acts,” sending heavily armed warplanes and staging mock attacks as state media denounced newly inaugurated Lai. The May drills were dubbed “Joint Sword — 2024A” and drew concerns from capitals, including Washington. Lai is to deliver a key speech on Thursday in front of the Presidential Office
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with
Taiwan was listed in 14th place among the world's wealthiest country in terms of GDP per capita, in the latest rankings released on Monday by Forbes magazine. Taiwan's GDP per capita was US$76,860, which put it at No. 14 on the list of the World's 100 Richest Countries this year, one spot above Hong Kong with US$75,130. The magazine's list of the richest countries in the world is compiled based on GDP per capita data, as estimated by the IMF. However, for a more precise measure of a nation's wealth, the magazine also considers purchasing power parity, which is a metric used to
RSS