It is well understood that having a homeport could bring economic benefits for the local community, but ports that are part of an interporting route could still enjoy a fair level of economic activities without the hassle of managing huge passenger numbers, according to Mark Robinson, president, Intercruises Shoreside & Port Services.
'Interporting would be easier to create, though there are huge economic opportunities for homeports. And interporting does not require mega terminals to accommodate so many passengers disembarking and embarking,' Robinson told delegates at the Seatrade Asia Pacific Cruise Congress in Shanghai Baoshan on Thursday.
Mitsuo Kubo, deputy director-general, port & harbor promotion office, Ishikawa Prefectural Government (Kanazawa Port Authority), is a fervent supporter of interporting.
Kubo believes that with an established interporting network, it would not be necessary to build up so many homeports.
'If you get all these ports together you can achieve better efficiency. These small ports have the advantage of attracting big crowds, and they also have strong local logistics support. If you string them together they can offer much better experience to customers. My ideal scenario would be interporting among East Asia for overall growth,' he explained.
Further down in Southeast Asia, Singapore is also working with its ASEAN members to build interporting in the region, according to Christina Siaw, ceo of Singapore Cruise Centre.
'We want to develop interporting in Southeast Asia,' Siaw affirmed. 'This will make itineraries more customisable and passengers can have the option to chop lengthy itineraries into shorter pieces. Interporting would also keep airports and hotels busy.
'Hence, we are working together in Southeast Asia to try to make that happen, and to try to clear obstacles on visa and other immigration issues,' she said.
China, the largest source market in Asia and a key country for interporting, however, is not ready, according to Ted Blamey, principal, CHART Management Consultants.
Blamey observed that the Chinese source market will keep growing, leading to the demand for more homeport capacity.
But growth for China need not be dependent on having more homeports, as not many Chinese ports actually satisfy the criteria of upgrading to become a homeport, according to Dorothy Xu, vice general manager, Shanghai Port International Cruise Terminal Development Co.
She listed Shanghai as a natural homeport, as well as Tianjin in the north. To the south, Sanya is trying to be one but it does not have enough passengers. Guangzhou has potential but it might pose competition to neighbouring Hong Kong. Xu’s handful of homeports compared to Beijing’s aim of having 12 homeports countrywide.
Xu also lamented there is a severe lack of cooperation among Chinese cruise ports. She suggested that a first step could be doing away with competition on port charges, and ports can then share experience on how they upgrade their services and come together to design regional routing.
'I buy the interporting idea. But this would require a policy breakthrough and a change in legislation on travel requirements for Chinese nationals if interporting is done with other East Asian nations,' Xu said, citing difficulties of Chinese nationals travelling to Taiwan due to political differences.
On top of challenges on the port side, the training and retention of Chinese crew presents another barrier to overcome, according to Phyllis Liang, manager, crewing services team, Singhai Marine Services (Singapore & Shanghai).
'The challenge during Chinese cruise crew recruitment includes unclear talent training orientation, lack of standardisation among crew agencies, leading to an overall lack of professionalism and proper career guidance,' Liang spelled out.
She said the solution is to develop a greater level of school-enterprise cooperation so as to strengthen the students’ skills, regulate behaviour of the agents, innovate new training and cultivate professionalism.
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