Hong Kong at centre of luxury cruise industry’s rapid Asian expansion

Cruise lines targeting the growing Chinese market see Hong Kong as ideal starting point for voyages, and for some, as home port for vessels that are getting ever bigger and better equipped

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The pool deck on the Ocean Insignia that berthed recently at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak cruise terminal. Photo: Bruce Yan

Published: 4:45pm, 20 Apr 2016Updated: 3:46pm, 22 Apr 2016

Last week the newly built luxury cruise liner Ovation of the Seas set sail from Southampton, England, on her inaugural voyage. This colossal 167,800 tonne floating palaceisn’t bound for the traditional cruising grounds of the Mediterranean or the Caribbean but the South China Sea, and she docks in Hong Kong on June 17.

The arrival will be symbolic of a glamorous, multibillion-dollar, leisure industry. Not many have noticed yet, but the luxury cruise business is experiencing an unprecedented boom in Asia and Hong Kong is poised to take full advantage of it.

“It’s a big business, but people just don’t see it,” says Balwin Yeung of Royal Caribbean International, which owns Ovation of the Seas. The ship’s home port will be Tianjin, near Beijing in northern China, and it will be joining four sister ships operating in the China region, including Voyager of the Seas, which will make Hong Kong its home port from May 17.

Jeff Bent, managing director Worldwide Cruise Terminals. Photo: Stuart Heaver

“The Chinese-source cruise market is growing [at a] triple-digit [rate] and that includes Hong Kong,” says Jeff Bent, managing director of Worldwide Cruise Terminals, operator of the city’s Kai Tak cruise terminal.