A new form of tourism industry in Taiwan

According to Taiwan International Ports Corporation’s statistics for recent three years, the increases during this period have the largest progression during last ten years.

The international arrivals of cruises and passengers have increased two times in past three years. Star Cruises absorbs an average of 100,000 travelers per year in Taiwanese market.

And with those chartered cruises by Princess Cruises, Royal Caribbean International, and Costa Cruises, the number of total Taiwanese travelers has been estimated between 130,000 to 140,000 in 2014.

All the travel agencies and cruise companies invest more budgets in advertising and marketing in order to promote cruise travel. This year could be said as a big harvest year in Taiwanese cruise market.

The biggest challenge of Taiwanese cruise market is the climate, typhoons in summer and the occasional mansoons in winter which are hardly overcome to the development. The average operation time is around seven months per year in Taiwanese market, and it is also an important issue in Asian region.

However, there were some conflicts happened this year between foreign cruise companies and Taiwanese travelers. In European and American market, if there is any unexpected weather like hurricanes or occasional mansoons, the original cruise schedule could be subjected by the captain according to the safety reason.

It is more understandable by western travelers, but it is totally different in Asian market because many Asian travelers couldn’t accept the change of cruise schedule.

One of the reasons is that cruise travel still an emerging travel product in Asia, so it is easy to cause travelers’ disputes. Nowadays, cruise companies are expected by communicating more with their travelers in different ways and also to have well training on dealing with unexpected events and emergencies.

http://www.xinmedia.com/n/news_article.aspx?page=2&newsid=8004&type=3#magText

ESC Toyes
Yun-Chung HUNG(Taiwan)
yun-chung.hung@get-mail.eu