CHINA’S FIRST SELF-BUILT CRUISE SHIP RIDES TOURISM RECOVERY WAVE: CARNIVAL’S MAGIC CITY PREPARES TO SET SAIL
?CARNIVAL’S MAGIC CITY PREPARES TO SET SAIL, AS CHINA’S FIRST SELF-BUILT CRUISE SHIP RIDES TOURISM RECOVERY WAVE
The name refers to a nickname for Shanghai, where authorities are determined to revive the cruise industry after it suffered during the pandemic. The 323-meter-long vessel is now being tested before its scheduled delivery at the end of 2023. Its first self-built cruise ship, which now carries the name Magic City, is in the final stages of construction and testing in Shanghai. China’s first self-built?cruise ship?is closer to setting sail after its operator christened it Magic City, a nickname for Shanghai, as the country pursues its ambition of becoming a global powerhouse in developing and operating such luxury vessels.
The 323-meter-long ship is now being tested before it is delivered at the end of 2023, CSSC-Carnival, a joint venture between the China State Shipbuilding Corp (CSSC) and the US-based cruise company Carnival, the operator of the vessel, said in a statement on Friday. The naming ceremony held in?Shanghai?on Friday exhibited the city’s confidence in tapping pent-up travel demand and reviving the?tourism sector?following three years of stringent?zero-Covid measures, analysts said.
“Cruise?was one of the key driving forces for Shanghai’s tourism industry [before the Covid-19 outbreak], and the role of a major hub for international cruise lines also reinforced the city’s goal of turning itself into an international shipping center,” said Zheng Hong gang, CEO of Shanghai-based Kate Travel Agency. “When Chinese people’s demand for cruise service fully recovers, a self-made ship will draw their attention because it may become a new source of national pride.”
?As of Friday, the ship now bears the brand name of the cruise operator, Adora, and its name, Magic City, which refers to a nickname used for the city of Shanghai. ?State-owned CSSC, the world’s largest shipbuilder, started building the ship at its Shanghai-based subsidiary Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding in October 2019. The company said that the ship required 20 times more worker hours to build than a so-called Capesize shipping vessel – the largest class of bulk ship that can carry any type of cargo. CSSC owns 60 percent of the CSSC-Carnival venture, which will operate under the brand Adora.
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The Magic City, with a gross tonnage of 135,500, can carry as many as 5,246 passengers. Shipbuilding is one of the 10 core technologies included in Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” industrial strategy, an ambitious plan that aims to help the country catch up with global leaders in 10 key industrial sectors, including?robotics,?semiconductor chips,?and?new-energy vehicles.
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Shanghai, the mainland’s commercial and financial capital, was Asia’s largest port for cruise lines before the coronavirus pandemic started at the end of 2019. A total of 2.5 million passengers landed in or departed from Shanghai via cruise lines in 2019, according to customs data.
?The zero-Covid policy nearly crippled the city’s cruise industry, but the Ministry of Transport published an operating guide at the end of March to resume and promote cruise services in cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen. Beijing decided to shift from strict pandemic curbs to living with the virus in December 2022, and there are rising expectations for a recovery of the tourism sector, which was among the hardest-hit industries in the past three years. Shanghai launched?a cruise service on the once-stinking Suzhou Creek?– known as the mother river of the city – to attract tourists early this year and bolster the city’s travel industry. It was the first fee-based cruise service on the creek in history, thanks to the local government’s 40-billion-yuan (US$5.7 billion) rehabilitation project.
The city’s tourism sector raked in total revenue of 533 billion yuan in 2019, an increase of 8 percent from a year earlier, according to official data. Fang Shizhong, director of the Shanghai Administration of Culture and Tourism, said at the ceremony on Friday that authorities will do their best to meet the pent-up travel demand from residents after the city emerged from the Covid-19 health crisis.
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