'40,000 Passengers' Largest Ever Cruise Arrival at Incheon Port... 10,000 Incheon Tourists This Year

The largest cruise ever to visit Incheon Port arrived on the morning of the 7th. Incheon City announced that the Spectrum of the Seas, a charter cruise from China, docked at Incheon Port around 7 a.m. on the 7th.

The Spectrum of the Seas, operated by Royal Caribbean, was built in 2019 and is a large 169,000-ton cruise ship capable of carrying about 7,100 people, including 5,600 passengers and 1,500 crew members, making it the largest cruise to have ever called at Incheon. On this visit, about 4,000 people boarded, including 3,948 group tourists from the Taiwanese Chlitina Group.

The Spectrum of the Seas departed from Shanghai, China on the 5th and is scheduled to leave Incheon around 10 p.m. on the 7th to return to China.

Incheon City held a welcoming event to coincide with the cruise's arrival, and at 6 p.m., a Pentaport Live Stage featuring The Fix and Crying Nut was set up on an outdoor special stage in front of the Incheon Port Cruise Terminal. Additionally, 92 buses were provided to operate Incheon tourism products, and vouchers worth 4,000 won per person were distributed for use at Sinpo Market in Jung-gu.

Chinese group tourists who arrived at Incheon Port on the morning of the 7th after departing from Shanghai, China, are heading out for sightseeing in Incheon city aboard the cruise ship Spectrum of the Seas (169,000-ton class).
[Image source=Yonhap News]

The cruise's original destination was Okinawa, Japan, but through marketing efforts by Incheon City, Incheon Tourism Organization, and Incheon Port Authority, it was persuaded to call at Incheon Port. These organizations held a tourism briefing on Incheon at the 2022 Taiwan International Travel Fair (ITF) to discuss developing related tourism products and visited Royal Caribbean in Shanghai last year to promote Incheon as a port of call destination.

An official from Incheon City stated, "With proactive cruise attraction efforts, the first China-origin charter cruise since the COVID-19 pandemic has arrived in Incheon. We will continue to work on revitalizing the local economy by attracting overseas cruise tourists."

Meanwhile, among the 9,688 cruise tourists who visited Incheon in the first quarter of this year, about 5,400 toured Incheon. This is 12 times the 425 cruise tourists who visited Incheon during the same period last year. Including this China-origin charter cruise, approximately 10,000 people have toured Incheon so far, significantly surpassing the total of 6,526 cruise tourists who visited Incheon last year.

Incheon City analyzed that the increase in overnight cruises that dock for one night and fly-and-cruise products (cruise products where passengers board the cruise ship via the airport) this year has been effective.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.