Domestic large-scale cruise ships break the ice: "Project No. 1" countdown to launch
China News Weekly reporter/Li Mingzi
Published in the 1080th issue of "China News Weekly" magazine on February 20, 2023
The Spring Festival holiday in 2023 has just ended, and Shanghai, which started the year with a "cold" start, finally ushered in a warm sun.
On the south side of the estuary of the Yangtze River, an unfinished giant white ship stands quietly in the dock.
Walking into the interior of the giant ship, more than 3,000 workers are hurrying to construct.
In more than 100 days, the first large cruise ship built in China will be undocked.
The first large domestic cruise ship has a gross tonnage of 135,500 tons, a length of 323.6 meters and a molded width of 37.2 meters.
If the cruise ship stands vertically on the ground, it will be 3 meters higher than the Burj Al Arab.
Due to the extremely difficult design and construction, large cruise ships, together with large liquefied natural gas carriers and aircraft carriers, are known as the "brightest jewel in the crown" of the shipbuilding industry. At present, large cruise ships are the only unfinished high-tech, high-additional Value ships products.
"As an imported product, a cruise ship has experienced a century of development and accumulation. It is a veritable giant system project that can directly reflect a country's equipment construction capabilities and comprehensive technological level." The design participant of the cruise ship and the head of the development department of Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. Li Jianing told China News Weekly that the number of parts of the cruise ship is equivalent to five times that of the C919 large aircraft, and 13 times that of the "Fuxing" high-speed rail. Every link of "re-innovation" is more difficult.
In order to develop the first domestic large-scale cruise ship, engineers from China State Shipbuilding Corporation (hereinafter referred to as CSSC) Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. have almost completely innovated the previous shipbuilding technology from design planning, process construction methods to on-site management.
Within CSSC, this large domestic cruise ship is regarded as "Project No. 1".
But it doesn't have its own name yet, and it is customarily called "the first ship" or "H1508 ship" by the builders.
This year is a critical year. Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding recently revealed that the ship H1508 plans to be undocked at the end of May this year and start sea trials in July. It is striving to complete the naming of the cruise ship in November and deliver it within this year.
"Building Our Own Cruise Ship"
Like most people, Chen Binyi, Deputy Director of the Cruise Ship Interior Department of Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co., Ltd., also got his first impression of the cruise ship from the movie.
Released in 1998, "Titanic" reproduced the luxurious interior of the original ship. This luxury cruise liner imitates the details of the Palace of Versailles in France, from the lounge filled with Louis XV-style furniture to the oak paneling and gilt decoration. In the atrium of the railing staircase, exquisite reliefs and artworks can be seen everywhere, and the luxury and sophistication of the interior of the cruise ship is unprecedented.
"The rapid development of China's shipbuilding industry in the past few decades has focused more on industrialized products, constantly breaking through technical difficulties, but cruise ships are not only industrial products, but also works of art, which should give people the pleasure of enjoying life." Chen Binyi said .
Many Chinese people are curious and yearn for large cruise ships.
Until July 2006, the "Arrangona" of Italy's Costa Cruises made its maiden voyage in Shanghai, and cruise travel was finally no longer "distant and mysterious" to Chinese people.
In just over half a year, the "Airangona" received 18,000 Chinese tourists.
Compared with the nearly saturated European and American markets, this emerging market in Asia is obviously full of more room for imagination.
According to the development law of the international cruise economy, when the per capita GDP of a country or region reaches 6,000 to 8,000 US dollars, the cruise economy will come quickly.
China's per capita GDP exceeded the bottom line of the "cruise economy" indicator in 2012, and first- and second-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin had the foundation for the development of the cruise economy earlier.
After Costa Cruises sailed into China, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Princess Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, MSC Cruises, and Dream Cruises came one after another. The cruise ships deployed by various operating companies in China are becoming more and more luxurious, and there are even some cruise ships specially designed for China. Custom-made ship types.
The Chinese cruise industry has ushered in a golden decade of explosive growth.
The ports of coastal cities are no longer the visiting ports of international cruise ships, and Shanghai, Tianjin, Xiamen and other places have started to build cruise home ports.
Before the arrival of the new crown epidemic, the Chinese cruise market had jumped to become the second largest cruise market after the United States.
The booming cruise travel market has pushed up the demand for ships, but in contrast, the global large-scale cruise ship construction capacity is slightly insufficient.
Large European shipyards are the main builders of cruise ships and other giant ships. As of August 2019, the three shipyards of Fincantieri in Italy, Meyer in Germany and Atlantique in France hold more than 90% of the world's large cruise ship orders.
According to the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, the annual production capacity of cruise ships with a gross tonnage of more than 70,000 in Europe is about 8 ships, and the construction space for cruise ships delivered before 2025 is basically full. However, the annual global demand for cruise ships is about 15 ships, and the supply and demand are extremely unbalanced.
"The development of domestic large-scale cruise ships is at the right time." Li Jianing said.
In April 2013, when General Secretary Xi Jinping inspected Sanya Phoenix Island International Cruise Port, he proposed, "Speed up the construction of the cruise port, vigorously develop the cruise industry, and build our own cruise ships to contribute to the construction of Hainan International Tourism Island."
In October 2013, CSSC began to launch the domestic cruise project. After various negotiations, CSSC chose the world's largest cruise operator Carnival Group to cooperate in the cruise project.
On October 13, 2015, CSSC, China Investment Corporation, Carnival Group, Fincantieri Group, Lloyd's Register and Shanghai Baoshan District Government jointly issued the "Multiple Declaration on the Cooperation of the Six Parties in the Cruise Industry".
How do the "six parties" perform their duties?
According to the plan, CSSC will be responsible for the construction of the cruise ship, Carnival Group will be responsible for the operation and management of the cruise ship, Italy’s Fincantieri Group will be responsible for the design demonstration of the cruise ship, Lloyd’s Register will be responsible for the quality management of the cruise ship, and Baoshan District will be responsible for the Wusongkou Perfection of the cruise terminal.
In 2017, CSSC signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for the construction of China's first domestically-made large cruise ship with the American Carnival Group and the Italian Fincantieri Group.
The cruise ship owner operation joint venture company established by CSSC and Carnival Group placed an order with the cruise ship construction company jointly established by CSSC and Fincantieri to order two 135,000-ton (Vista-class) large cruise ships.
At the same time, the cruise ship owner operation joint venture company also has the option to order another 4 large cruise ships.
Relevant information shows that the unit price of the two cruise ships undertaken by China is 750 million US dollars, that is to say, if the "2+4" cruise ship orders are fully completed, the total price will reach 4.5 billion US dollars.
At the first China International Import Expo in 2018, the joint venture between CSSC, Carnival Corporation of the United States and Fincantieri Group of Italy formally signed a contract for 2+4 large Vista-class cruise ships.
On October 18, 2019, China's first large-scale cruise ship, numbered H1508, officially started construction and entered the substantive construction stage.
How to build a mobile sea city?
Over the past ten years, when the center of gravity of the international cruise market has gradually shifted eastward and the Asian cruise economy has developed rapidly, Asian shipping companies, which hold most of the world's ship orders, have proved with painful lessons that the design and construction of large cruise ships are not the same as the concept of other ships. is completely different.
Almost all of the world's large cruise ships are built in Europe, especially large cruise ship orders, which are mainly monopolized by the four major shipping companies of Italy's Fincantieri Group, Germany's Meyer Shipyard, France's Atlantic Shipyard and Finland's Massa Shipyard.
Neighboring Japan has also paid huge "tuition fees" in this field.
In 1990, Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries undertook an order for two large cruise ships, but due to insufficient construction experience, in 2002, one of the cruise ships caught fire and burned down during the construction process, causing heavy losses, and the other had to be transferred to the Finnish Massa Shipyard put up.
In 2011, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries once again received an order for two large cruise ships of 124,000 gross tons and 3,300 passengers from Aida Cruises, a subsidiary of Italy's Costa.
But it was not the best time for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to return to the market of building large cruise ships.
In 2012, the Costa Concordia hit a rock and capsized in the waters near Italy, killing at least 32 people. After the accident, international regulations such as the cruise ship’s hull structure, watertight cabin settings, and emergency power device settings were adjusted, and the shipyard had to make a lot of changes. .
In addition, there were a lot of differences of opinion between the shipowner and the shipyard from the very beginning of the contract, which led to the extension of the construction period and the increased loss of the shipyard.
In October 2016, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries President Shunichi Miyanaga officially announced at a press conference that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will no longer be involved in the construction of large cruise ships with a capacity of more than 100,000 tons in the future, and will instead turn to the construction of small and medium-sized cruise ships and ro-ro passenger ships. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has given up on building large cruise ships.
"In addition to shipbuilding technology, the key to cruise ship construction is outfitting and management." Chen Binyi explained that the design and construction of cruise ships are complex, require many supporting manufacturers, and have a long construction period. It is extremely difficult to coordinate and parallelize all links. The shipyard has lasted for hundreds of years. After several or more than ten generations, the accumulation of experience, technology, management mode and supporting industries cannot be surpassed overnight.
Li Lanmei, a senior engineer at the Shanghai Institute of Ship Technology, put forward three suggestions in the article "Preliminary Analysis of the Construction Characteristics of Luxury Cruise Ships": China must first carefully analyze the essential differences and characteristics of luxury cruise ships and ordinary passenger and cargo ships; second, Further analyze the characteristics of luxury cruise ship construction, and then sort out its key technologies; third, fundamentally change the construction concept, with "quality" as the core, and in the design and manufacture, it is necessary to be "finely carved" like a work of art. Carefully crafted".
Not only that, the construction process of cruise ships is complicated, China has no relevant construction experience, and some core technologies have to rely on foreign countries.
In order to better support the design and construction of the first cruise ship, CSSC and the Italian Fincantieri Group jointly established a cruise design and construction company, holding 60% and 40% of the shares respectively.
The Chinese party in the joint venture, CSSC Cruise Technology Development Co., Ltd., was established in Shanghai by Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Shipbuilding International Co., Ltd., China Ship and Ocean Engineering Design and Research Institute (708 Institute), and Shanghai Ship Research and Design Institute.
Guangzhou Shipbuilding International has built many luxury ro-ro passenger ships and passenger ships. Shanghai Shipyard has rich experience in the design of ro-ro passenger ships. The 708 Institute has long studied key technologies such as cruise ship hydrodynamics, and has carried out technical research on large-scale cruise ship design.
"It's not difficult to build a ship's hull, but how to build a mobile city on the sea and how to integrate urban functions into the ship." Chen Binyi told "China News Weekly" that cruise ships sailing in the sea must withstand the test of wind and waves. To solve basic problems such as water supply, power supply, and sewage discharge, and to meet the various leisure and entertainment needs of more than 5,000 people, and to realize such complicated functions in a limited space, the construction of cruise ships is almost done with millimeters as the unit of precision. "The system engineering is both huge and precise."
Xue Yabin, deputy director of the Second General Assembly Department of Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, gave an example that the cable layout under the auditorium steps of the theater on the H1508 ship alone has 20 to 30 kilometers, which is longer than the total cables of the entire ship of a 300,000-ton oil tanker.
The whole ship has 136 systems, 25 million parts, and 4,200 kilometers of cables, approximately equal to the distance from Shanghai to Lhasa.
In the actual construction process, in order to ensure that the cabins and public areas are up to the standard, the space of the concealed project is repeatedly compressed.
"In places where tourists can't see, the pipes are next to the pipes, filling up the space. Once the work is reworked, it will affect the whole body." Xue Yabin said.
"If the design and construction of cruise ships only rely on two-dimensional drawings and human brains, they will definitely be exhausted." Wang Zhangjian, head of Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Design Department, said that Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding has accumulated experience in digital design when undertaking marine engineering projects. This is one of the reasons why Waigaoqiao can undertake the cruise project.
Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding has 150,000 pages of design drawings and construction management documents imported from Fincantieri, amounting to nearly 2.1 tons, but these materials cannot be directly used to guide on-site construction.
According to Li Jianing, ship design is generally divided into four stages: conceptual design, basic design, detailed design and production design. Conceptual design is usually only a basic plan of the ship shape, but it is very creative and is usually completed by a foreign team. The basic design must combine ship functions and related The specification refines the conceptual drawings, and the detailed design is further deepened according to the basic framework. The production design is a bridge connecting the drawings and construction, and a lot of modeling and drawing work needs to be completed.
"Production design is closely related to shipyard facilities and production capacity, and the production capacity of each shipyard is different." Li Jianing said, for example, that building a cruise ship is like building blocks. Steel plates are cut into basic parts on land, and the parts are assembled into segments. Combined into a general section, and then hoist the whole section to the dock for loading.
Dock resources are fixed and valuable. The more the total tonnage of a single lifting is, the less the number of liftings is, and the higher the productivity of the dock will be.
Therefore, how to divide the total section is determined by the hoisting capacity of the shipyard's crane.
"In other words, the drawings related to production design in the 150,000 pages of information provide important references, but the actual production design must be redone." Li Jianing said.
Wang Zhangjian said that the first domestically produced cruise ship is divided into 675 sections, and there are as many as 1,305 arrangements and combinations of the technical rules and spaces of the cruise ship's pipe materials.
With the help of cruise ship design, the digital design technology of the shipyard has also been further upgraded.
Larger cruise ships require larger docks.
In October 2018, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding started the No. 2 dock renovation project, extending the original 540-meter dock 200 meters to the land side to form a giant dock with a length of 740 meters and a width of 76 meters, with an area equivalent to 7 The standard football field can meet the needs of a large cruise ship group and a large cruise ship outfitting at the same time, and meet the annual construction requirements of a semi-large cruise ship.
On October 18, 2019, the cruise steel plate began to be cut, and the first large cruise ship entered the actual construction stage.
By November 2020, five months after the expansion of No. 2 dock, the first large-scale cruise ship will be officially transferred to the dock for continuous loading.
At the end of the next year, the giant white ship achieved full penetration. On the day it floated in the dock, the workers in the shipyard excitedly celebrated with a water gate ceremony. The cruise project entered the "second half" of the interior decoration and system completion and commissioning.
Initially mastered the core technology
"Weight control, vibration reduction and noise reduction, and safe return to port are the three core technologies that run through the entire life cycle of cruise ships." Li Jianing told China News Weekly.
Cruise ship construction is extremely weight sensitive.
The first domestically produced cruise ship has a designed gross weight of 135,500 tons and a dead weight of about 65,000 tons. The construction deviation is only a few hundred tons, which is less than one percent of the weight of the ship.
Unlike ordinary cargo ships, every 1 ton increase in the weight of a cruise ship means that boarding materials or the number of people will decrease, which is a real loss of money for the ship owner.
Strict control over weight is also reflected in the shipbuilding contract.
When the weight error exceeds a certain limit, the shipyard will pay a corresponding fine. If the error reaches a certain level, the shipowner can abandon the ship unconditionally.
At the construction site of the cruise ship, the total accuracy of the weighing system for the sections and total sections has reached 5/10,000.
In order to control the weight from the source, the first large domestic cruise ship used a large number of 4~8mm thin steel plates.
When the steel was transported into the Waigaoqiao Shipyard, the ten-meter-long sheet looked very "delicate", like giant noodles, and was carefully unloaded. During the entire transportation process, the sheet was kept straight at all times before being sent to the workshop for cutting.
Although the thin plate is light, it is easy to deform, which will cause the dislocation of the hull structure and affect the appearance.
To this end, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding has added an intelligent thin-plate production workshop dedicated to cruise ships, using technologies such as laser cutting and laser hybrid welding to improve the efficiency and accuracy of thin-plate transportation, cutting, processing and construction.
Seasickness is the most feared when sailing at sea. How to keep the hull stable and flexible in wind and waves?
Li Jianing said that lowering the center of gravity can achieve better stability, but the restoring torque is too large, the return speed is too fast, and it is easy to make people seasick, so repeated calculations are required to choose the best stability performance.
Vibration and noise assessment is one of the difficult problems that domestic cruise ships have not yet fully overcome.
"In a room, how much noise can different objects produce, and how effective is the vibration and noise reduction material? It is best to complete the evaluation of these data at the design stage. Once the project is completed, it is extremely difficult to modify, and adding sound insulation materials locally will not be effective. It will affect the weight of the hull.” Li Jianing explained that in addition to using professional simulation modeling software for analysis, accurate design input conditions must also be available.
At present, through the construction of two cruise ships, Waigaoqiao will also continue to collect and enrich the data of the main vibration and noise sources and most of the sound insulation materials.
With the popularity of cruise travel, the construction of ships is getting bigger and bigger, more and more passengers are boarding, new routes are constantly being developed, and the safety requirements for cruise ships are also increasing.
In an emergency, the ship itself is the best lifeboat.
In August 2006, the International Maritime Organization introduced the requirement of "safe return to port" to improve the survivability of the ship, that is, within the accident limit of fire or flooding, the cruise ship can rely on its own power to return to the nearest port, and the safety area on the ship can meet the The basic life of passengers and crew.
"Simply put, the basic principle of safe return to port is reasonable redundancy and backup. Two sets of the most important 13+1 systems on board are prepared to ensure that when one fails, the other can keep running." Li Jianing Said that the difficulty of the two systems lies in cost control and weight control, the key is how to scientifically layout and rationally design redundant backup.
Based on this, the 5 high-power generators of the first large-scale cruise ship are divided into two groups according to 2 large and 3 small, and are arranged in the bow and stern cabins respectively.
In the event of a fire or flooding accident, more than 5,000 people on the cruise ship will escape to various assembly stations on the ship according to the set route according to their location.
Why is the route designed in this way, how wide is the aisle, and what empirical coefficients are used for reference?
In other words, can another ship design a similar evacuation plan?
"The design results can be imported, but the principles can only be explored by yourself." Li Jianing recalled that during the design and construction process of the cruise ship from 0 to 1, many technical gaps were filled.
The daily work of the designers in the early stage is to read drawings, check documents, do projects, consult experts and classification societies, and the modeling of evacuation simulation analysis alone took nearly a year.
On August 8, 2022, construction of the second large domestic cruise ship officially started at Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, numbered H1509.
"It marks that China's shipbuilding industry has initially mastered the key core technologies for the design and construction of large-scale cruise ships, and it is a milestone step towards the batch and serial construction of large-scale cruise ships." Chen Gang, chief designer of domestic large-scale cruise ships, said in an interview with the media .
Compared with the first ship, the second large cruise ship has "grown up".
The total tonnage increased by 6,700 tons, the total length increased by 14.4 meters, and the number of guest rooms increased by 19 to 2,144, which can accommodate 5,232 people.
In response to changes in ship type and configuration, relevant technology development demonstrations have to be re-started, but with the experience of the first ship, the design and construction cycle of the second cruise ship was shortened by half a year.
At the 2022 Wusongkou Forum, CSSC introduced the third domestically-made cruise ship, which was independently developed and designed by its subsidiary CSSC Cruise Technology Development Co., Ltd., with a total length of 293.5 meters and a width of 34 meters. m, marking the further improvement of the domestic cruise product lineage.
The window period for cruise market recovery
The number of parts on a cruise ship is five times that of a C919 large aircraft, and 13 times that of the "Fuxing" high-speed rail. The "purchasing problem" brought by 25 million parts may exceed most "heavy equipment" and super-large projects .
At present, the main equipment and interior materials of the first cruise ship still rely on imports, and the localization rate is not high.
During the epidemic, the supply of imported materials was unstable. Chen Binyi, deputy director of the interior decoration department of Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Cruises, had extensively searched for supply chains in the domestic market.
However, cruise ships are full of customized products with high specifications and limited demand. Small factories lack technical capabilities, and large factories are unwilling to make losses.
Take vermiculite board, a green and environmentally friendly material for fire prevention and sound insulation, as an example. China is the largest producer of vermiculite board in the world. Because there is no technology and certification, all the vermiculite boards used in the first cruise ship need to be imported.
Domestic rough-processed plates are shipped overseas, reprocessed and returned to China, and the price has increased by five times.
The more than 20 elevators on the cruise ship and the central air conditioner that can serve 6,000 people can only be imported at present.
Chen Binyi once told the media a story that he searched all over the country for a glass beer can on board, but finally found that it could only be imported.
Because only one company in Germany produces glass beer cans in the world, the price is high and the annual output is limited.
"No other company is willing to do it. On the one hand, the initial investment cost is too high, on the other hand, the output is limited, and the market itself is small."
Xue Yabin, Deputy Director of the Second General Assembly Department of Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, said that in order to build the first large cruise ship, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding has absorbed more than 500 global suppliers across industries and regions, and has cooperated with 54 suppliers from the United States and Italy in the field of cruise ship interior decoration. Establish cooperation with service providers.
"In the future, with the maturity of cruise ship manufacturing technology and production capacity, it may be able to leverage the development of the domestic cruise ship industry chain." In Chen Binyi's view, cruise ships are the ship type with the most complex functions and the largest construction volume, and the autonomy of technology and supply chain, It will also drive the technological progress of the manufacturing industry in many aspects such as power propulsion systems, electromechanical equipment, intelligent control, green environmental protection, new energy, new materials, and quality control management.
When building the first large domestic cruise ship, it mainly imported it, and when building the second ship, it began to find ways to incubate domestic suppliers. This is the expectation of Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding.
This is also a vivid embodiment of "one ship pulls the entire industrial chain".
As an important supplement to the marine economy, cruise ship construction can bring a 1:14 boost to shipbuilding, home port, retail and other related industry chains, and even drive the transformation and upgrading of related industries such as hotels and entertainment.
In 2019, international cruise ships made 735 voyages from home ports such as Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen in China, driving 1.993 million trips, including 120,000 overseas tourists who boarded from home ports in China, with a total economic contribution of 35.8 billion yuan.
Not only tourism consumption, the cruise industry chain can even further benefit agriculture, manufacturing, construction, energy, financial business services and other fields.
According to the research "Cruise's Economic Contribution to China" jointly released by the Cruise and Yachting Branch of the China Communications and Transportation Association and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, by 2035, the contribution of cruise ships to China's overall economy is expected to reach nearly 550 billion yuan.
If nothing else, how will the H1508, which will be delivered this year, make money commercially?
In fact, making money is not easy.
The Chinese cruise market has bid farewell to the double-digit "high growth".
According to the "Cruise Green Paper" jointly issued by Shanghai University of Engineering Technology and Shanghai International Cruise Economic Research Center, the average annual growth rate of China's cruise market in the embryonic stage from 2006 to 2011 was 36.74%. In the long run, the average annual growth rate is as high as 72.84%.
Since 2017, the growth rate of China's cruise market has slowed down for the first time, with a growth rate of only 8% in that year.
In fact, since 2018, many foreign-funded cruise lines have left the market due to difficulties in making profits.
On July 19, 2018, Norwegian Cruise Line, one of the world's three major cruise brands, announced that its only Norwegian Joy in China will temporarily withdraw from China.
The comment that "Chinese aunts can't eat luxury ships" went viral for a while, and the consumption of free meals on cruise ships doubled, but the revenue from secondary shopping scenes such as bars and shops did not perform well.
Domestic "leisure and money" groups are mainly middle-aged and elderly people. With the gradual saturation of the elderly tourism market, travel agencies and cruise companies have begun to take low-priced routes in order to acquire customers, further reducing the profit margins of cruise ships. Luxury cruise ships are unsustainable and urgently needed Look for new market growth breakthroughs.
In March 2019, the Costa Venice cruise ship specially built for the Asian market departed from Italy, followed Marco Polo's business route, crossed the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, and arrived at the "Mysterious East".
Royal Caribbean Cruises also launched a new cruise ship "Spectrum of the Seas" that is more in line with the needs of the Chinese market, increasing the number of family rooms, luxury stores that attract women's consumption, and a large number of youthful entertainment facilities.
In addition to 9 free restaurants, there are 7 paid restaurants, including Sichuan cuisine, hot pot, and Dadong Chinese cuisine.
The "Spectrum of the Seas" departed from Shanghai on its maiden voyage and became the largest and most expensive cruise ship in Asia at that time.
However, after the outbreak of the new crown epidemic that lasted for three years, it dealt a fatal blow to the global cruise market.
At the beginning of 2020, an outbreak occurred on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan. As the epidemic spread, the global cruise industry suffered the biggest impact since the September 11 incident in the United States, and the cruise line was forced to shut down.
Carnival, one of the three giants in global cruise operations, suffered a net loss of US$781 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2020 alone.
As the haze of the global epidemic dissipates, everything from policy to industry is preparing for the revival of the cruise market after the epidemic is over.
From a global perspective, as of November 2022, 375 cruise ships have resumed sailing in Europe, North America and other regions, accounting for 86% of cruise ships, and 94% of the overall capacity has been restored.
The domestic market will also usher in a recovery.
In August 2022, five departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Cruise Yacht Equipment and Industry". Cruise ships are accelerating, and small cruise ships have been built in batches.
The "Several Opinions on Promoting the Development of my country's Cruise Economy" issued by ten ministries and commissions including the Ministry of Transport pointed out that by 2035, China's cruise market will reach a scale of 14 million passengers per year, making it the world's largest cruise market.
The first domestic large-scale cruise ship "H1508" has entered the countdown to delivery, and the progress of the project has exceeded 87%. More than 3,000 workers are still polishing this "sea city".
With the resumption of outbound travel after the epidemic, many people have begun to look forward to boarding this "Made in China" white giant ship.
"China News Weekly" Issue 6, 2023
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