0.9 mln cruise ship tourists visited Korea in 1H of 2016
Korea Tourism Organization announced on the 26th that 899,539 foreign tourists visited Korea on cruise ships in the first half of this year. The number of passengers and crew were 652,756 and 246,783 respectively.
The number of port of calls also sharply increased to 306 calls compared to the previous year’s figure of 196.
In particular, 9 cruise vessels were newly inaugurated including the Ovation of the Seas and Skysea(70,000t class) entered Donghae Port in January for the first time. Korea has striven to attract cruise ship tourists and achieved fruitful results.
Such an upward trend is expected to continue until the end of this year. BPA anticipates to have more than 1.9 million tourists on 841 cruise ship calls in 2016.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and BPA participated in the largest cruise convention in the world, Seatrade Cruise Global, in March in order to carry out marketing strategies aimed at 9 major global liners.
In addition, Busan City and BPA co-hosted Asia’s largest cruise convention, Seatrade Cruise Asia, in May. BPA also held cruise tour presentations in China and Japan.