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TOURISM

Venice-themed ship cruises to burgeoning China market

A huge liner designed entirely for Chinese tourists around the ever-romantic theme of Venice sets sail from Italy this week hoping to consolidate Costa Cruises in the vast and burgeoning Chinese tourism market.

Published: 2 March 2019 14:29 CET
Venice-themed ship cruises to burgeoning China market
Photo: AFP

The Costa Venezia left the Fincantieri shipyard in northeastern Italy on Thursday for neighbouring Trieste. From there, it will head for China where it will carry up to 5,260 Chinese tourists on cruises from Shanghai to Japan, along with a healthy dose of Venetian kitsch, gondolas and all.

In a sign of the gap to be filled in the Chinese market, a sister ship will be launched next year by Italy's Costa Cruises, part of the huge Carnival Corporation.

The launching of Costa Venezia “is a very important moment in the history of Costa in China,” said the company's Asia president Mario Zanetti.

“This is the first ship we're putting on the market, conceived since the start for Chinese tourists,” he told AFP.

Italy-based Costa was the first to offer cruises to the Chinese 13 years ago.

“It was really Costa Cruises that started this type of tourism in China, in 2006, and now the Chinese market has become the second in the world, after North America,” said Giuliano Noci, lecturer in strategy at Milan Polytechnic business school.

“From 2013 to 2016, the Chinese cruise market grew by 70 percent year-on-year, an impressive figure compared to Western markets,” Noci told AFP.

After a slight drop in 2017 when China cut South Korean cruise destinations because of tensions over the deployment of a US anti-missile system, numbers are set to take off again.

Over the last 10 years the Chinese market has reached 2.5 million cruise passengers while a total of around 140 million Chinese are travelling abroad, said Zanetti.

“Cruises represent only around two percent of those (Chinese) going to foreign countries for their holidays. That shows you the potential for this market, which could become the world's biggest,” he said.

But, warns Noci, “growth will also depend on what's on offer, especially how they can attract tourists from central China with innovative marketing. Shanghai inhabitants alone currently account for 40 percent of Chinese cruise ship customers.”

Companies will also have to target the wealthy 25-40 year-old age group “which doesn't want just a cultural experience but a real adventure,” said Noci.

Even as it cruises the high seas, the Costa Venezia takes passengers on a journey through Venice, via the central Saint Mark's Square bar to original gondolas and waiting staff dressed as gondoliers.

The ship also offers 11 karaoke rooms and plenty of gambling opportunities. Alongside Italian cuisine, the restaurants will serve authentic Chinese dishes to accommodate guests' dietary requirements.

Costa Cruises is investing six billion euros from 2018 to 2023 to buy seven ships, after which it will have a fleet of 34, including five cruise ships in Asia.

Costa's owner Carnival is also working with Fincantieri and the China State Shipbuilding Corporation to build vessels in China, despite worries that technology transfers will enable Chinese shipbuilders to take over.

But Zanetti dismisses those concerns, saying they are working “in a spirit of partnership and in a market that has such a low penetration. The more cruise companies are present in the market, the more there are opportunities for growth.”

READ ALSO: See Venice, but pay an entry fee first

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TRAVEL NEWS

Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Almost 800,000 fewer UK holidaymakers have visited Spain in 2023 when compared to 2019. What’s behind this big drop?

Published: 23 August 2023 11:36 CEST
Updated: 26 August 2023 18:32 CEST
Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Spain welcomed 12.2 million UK tourists between January and July 2023, 6 percent less when compared to the same period in 2019, according to data released on Monday by Spanish tourism association Turespaña.

This represents a decrease of 793,260 British holidaymakers for Spain so far this year.

Conversely, the number of Italian (+8 percent), Irish (+15.3 percent), Portuguese (+24.8 percent), Dutch (+4 percent) and French tourists (+5 percent) visiting España in 2023 are all above the rates in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. 

German holidaymakers are together with their British counterparts the two main nationalities showing less interest in coming to Spanish shores.

Britons still represent the biggest tourist group that comes to Spain, but it’s undergoing a slump, with another recent study by Caixabank Research suggesting numbers fell particularly in June 2023 (-12.5 percent of the usual rate). 

READ ALSO: Spain fully booked for summer despite most expensive holiday prices ever

So are some Britons falling out of love with Spain? Are there clear reasons why a holiday on the Spanish coast is on fewer British holiday itineraries?

According to Caixabank Research’s report, the main reasons are “the poor macroeconomic performance of the United Kingdom, the sharp rise in rates and the weakness of the pound”.

This is evidenced in the results of a survey by British market research company Savanta, which found that one in six Britons are not going on a summer holiday this year due to the UK’s cost-of-living crisis.

Practically everything, everywhere has become more expensive, and that includes holidays in Spain: hotel stays are up 44 percent, eating out is 13 percent pricier, and flights are 40 percent more on average. 

READ ALSO: How much more expensive is it to holiday in Spain this summer?

Caixabank stressed that another reason for the drop in British holidaymakers heading to Spain is that those who can afford a holiday abroad are choosing “more competitive markets” such as Turkey, Greece and Portugal. 

And there’s no doubt that the insufferably hot summer that Spain is having, with four heatwaves so far, has also dissuaded many holidaymakers from Blighty from overcooking in the Spanish sun. 

With headlines such as “This area of Spain could become too hot for tourists” or “tourists say it’s too hot to see any sights” featuring in the UK press, budding British holidaymakers are all too aware of the suffocating weather conditions Spain and other Mediterranean countries are enduring. 

Other UK outlets have urged travellers to try out the cooler Spanish north rather than the usual piping hot Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol destinations.

Another UK poll by InsureandGo found that 71 percent of the 2,000+ British respondents thought that parts of Europe such as Spain, Greece and Turkey will be too hot to visit over summer by 2027.

There’s further concern that the introduction in 2024 of the new (and delayed) ETIAS visa for non-EU visitors, which of course now also applies to UK nationals, could further compel British tourists to choose countries to holiday in rather than Spain.

READ MORE: Will British tourists need to pay for a visa waiver to enter Spain?

However, a drop in the number of British holidaymakers may not be all that bad for Spain, even though they did spend over €17 billion on their Spanish vacations in 2022. 

Towns, cities and islands across the country have been grappling with the problem of overtourism and the consequences it has on everything from quality of life for locals to rent prices. 

READ ALSO: ‘Beach closed’ – Fake signs put up in Spain’s Mallorca to dissuade tourists

The overcrowded nature of Spain’s beaches and most beautiful holiday hotspots appears to be one of the reasons why Germans are visiting Spain in far fewer numbers. A recent report in the country’s most read magazine Stern asked “if the dream is over” in their beloved Mallorca.

Spanish authorities are also seeking to overhaul the cheaper holiday package-driven model that dominates many resorts, which includes moving away from the boozy antics of young British and other European revellers.

Fewer tourists who spend more are what Spain is theoretically now looking for, and the rise in American, Japanese and European tourists other than Brits signify less of a dependence on the British market, one which tends to maintain the country’s tourism status quo for better or for worse.

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