The cruise industry is modernizing and coming up with innovative ship designs and a variety of destinations, especially exotic regions of the world. These enhanced choices will provide holidays to match all travel expectations. One of the most significant areas of growth is the Asia market. The cruise market in Asia is expanding to new destinations, and Korea is partaking in this tremendous growth. Kim Hyunsung, Senior Deputy Director of Korea’s Marine Leisure Tourism Division said: “We are accommodating overseas cruise companies in Korea, so we are trying to make our destinations unique and attractive.”
Korea joined the Asia Cruise Cooperation (ACC) and currently has 6 main ports of call and future plans for a domestic cruise line. In addition to increasing the cruise market for cruise calls, they also have hopes to become a key outbound market with homeport operations. In 2018 they had 22,000 outbound passengers on ships and there are currently a number of charter ships using Korea for outbound operations. The newly opened airport and port in Incheon will further the plans for Korea to become a source market.
The Port of Sokcho in South Korea conducted turnaround operations for Costa neoRomantica during its first cruise call of the 2019 cruise season. The ship docked on Sunday, April 21, 2019, with 1,500 guests disembarking and new guests embarking on the same day. Silversea’s Silver Explorer made its inaugural call in May 2019. There are six more calls scheduled to Sokcho this year, including additional calls scheduled for Costa and Royal Caribbean.
This post was written by Shannon Mckee, founder of Access Cruise Inc. Access Cruise Inc is a Miami based cruise marketing and sales consulting group, specializing in product and business development within the cruise industry.