By
Cherie Rowlands |
The past six months since taking on the role of general manager at the Asia Cruise Association (ACA) have proved a busy time for Kevin Leong, with a brisk baptism that involved organising the ACA’s participation in three major conferences back-to-back – Cruise Shipping Asia in mid-September, All Asia Cruise Convention the following week and ITB Asia in October.
However, the effort was worth it. The industry events proved valuable, not only in relation to travel agents’ training sessions – a target market for the ACA – but for contact with the cruise lines. Leong says: “The lines generally have very high expectations of Asia as a source market and are keen to know more about it, so they are trying to understand Asian cruise passengers and how to modify products to suit their needs.”
Awareness is one thing, but the constraints to growth in Asia, the need for more ports of call, and getting national governments to commit to the infrastructure that is required for cruise ships are issues that have been ongoing for some time, says Leong, who in 2006 was chair of the ASEAN Cruise Working Group: “It is not easy to resolve, as we are talking about a market that is still quite small in terms of numbers of cruise passengers in our part of the world and returns are not seen to be adequate for the kind of investment that is required. It’s a chicken-and-egg situation – the infrastructure may not come as quickly as we want it but cruise business depends on the infrastructure. So it’s a continuing discussion.”
Yet there have been infrastructure developments, including the new Marina Bay Cruise Centre in Singapore and the soon-to-be-opened Hong Kong cruise terminal, but these are not enough, according to Leong. “Right now there are only four berths in Singapore – two at the new Marina Bay Cruise Centre and two at the older Singapore Cruise Centre. When Hong Kong opens the ocean cruise terminal I think they will have four berths all together. It isn’t that many in each major cruise hub, compared to the miles of berths at Miami, so when the demand is too great we have to use berths in the container ports. It is not the best introduction to a country. So we have to get more ports open so that ships can spread themselves around various hubs in Asia more evenly.”
It comes as no surprise that Leong believes there is plenty of cruising potential in the region. He says: “China is a huge source market, but with the second largest population in the world so is India, while other markets such as Indonesia are still developing. So there are large markets with tremendous potential once we get over the mindset of needing to build infrastructure to get them in. My brief stint with the ACA has opened my eyes to what has been done elsewhere and huge investment is not really necessary to open up the cruise business in Asia. When I arrived on a cruise visit to Phuket in December, there was no cruise terminal to speak of, not even a permanent pier. There is a tender operation, but the ‘pier’ is a makeshift one. Passengers disembark at the end of a line of floating pontoons and then walk along to the beach, which is in Phuket City. “Even as a marquee port, and people want to visit there because they have heard all about it, a full scale permanent cruise terminal structure is not required.”
Part of the job of the ACA is to get cruise lines to visit and help governments to attract cruise ships to their ports. “This is where we have a story to tell the government officials – they can get in at the top end or the bottom end,” says Leong. “The top involves major infrastructure such as in Singapore and Hong Kong. But if a destination is happy being a port of call with basic infrastructure such as the makeshift pier in Phuket, that is sufficient.”
Port development in new destinations is one of the major areas of focus for the ACA. “We need more ports of call all over South East Asia and North Asia so that we can create new itineraries for the cruise lines. Having more ports of call and additional hubs all over Asia would ease the demand for berthing slots by the cruise ships.”
Malaysia, says Leong, is keen to open up more of its coastal cities for hubs and ports of call, while Indonesia wants to develop Bali as a southern hub. He sees a future with major hubs from Shanghai to Hong Kong, Singapore and Bali linking up with Australia and New Zealand. “Vietnam has also expressed interest in developing its huge 3,000km coastline, including Hanoi, Ha Long Bay and Ho Chi Minh City – and Thailand wishes to develop more cruise ports in the Gulf of Siam. China, of course, has already built several terminals in its major cities.”
Creating a supply of cruise packages in the market for travel agents is an important component of the ACA’s work too, says Leong. “Not only have we undertaken travel agent training, but we attend regular travel agent shows such as ITB Asia, which brings travel agents together from all over the region. We encourage them to understand that a cruise is a good alternative to a land-based holiday, but we want cruise lines to become more prominent and better known by putting their packages in front of the travel agents too, so we had a cruise stand for the first time in ITB Asia 2012.”
As a result of the ACA’s initiatives, Leong expects to see impressive cruise numbers in the region in the next two or three years. “Both Royal Caribbean and Costa are already doubling their deployments, so hopefully that will double the number of passengers they carry too. Star Cruises is the third major line homeporting in Asia; it has been reported that Carnival is opening up an office here and that MSC might do the same. The more ships they have here, the more growth there will be.”
Having previously spent all his working life at the Singapore Tourism Board and witnessed growth in the general travel sector, Leong is looking forward to seeing a similar picture with cruising in Asia. “It is a sunrise industry, a new travel segment that is yet to be fully developed and is still in its very early stages. It will be nice to be in at the beginning and to see it grow.”