The Asia cruise tourism industry: Current trend and future outlook

More frequent cruisers prefer attractive cruising destinations, excellent geographical locations, diversified oriental cultures, local wildlife, rich tourism resource and exotic experiences in Asia for western travellers. Cruising in the Asian regions has considered as a potential growth in the transport and tourism industry. In this paper, we aim to provide suggestions to industrial practitioners on the development of the cruise port in Asia and identify the key elements of a regional leading cruise hub as desired by different users. Nevertheless, the majority of cruising-related studies were focused on tourism management in the North American and European regions. Relevant cruising studies on maritime transport management in the Asian region are under-researched. In doing so, we newly propose the CRUISE PORT framework by illustrating four representative countries in Asia (South Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Singapore) to look for common characteristics and unique features of cruise ship market in the Asian region. In order to give the valuable information and provide insight into the framework, we carried out semi-structured, in-depth interviews with different practitioners involved in the cruise industry. Through the framework, it fosters the industrial practitioners to implement cruise port strategies, cruise lines strategies and local government planning for the cruise destinations.