|
|
|
¡ã The Sapphire Princess is now regularly visiting Jeju. Photo courtesy Princess Cruises |
Jeju Special Self-Governing Province announced that since the calling of Princess Cruises in 2013, interest from other cruise lines in visiting Jeju has spiked. Prior to last year, 83 percent of cruises calling at Jeju belonged to Costa Cruise, Royal Caribbean Cruises and Star Cruises.
As the cruise industry grows, there is growing competition between cruise lines to make Jeju a port of call. Princess Cruises, part of Carnival Corporation, the world’s largest cruise company, is the first Asian premium cruise line and it possesses 18 cruise ships calling at more than 350 calling ports around the world.
Sapphire Princess, with its home port at Shanghai, China, entered Jeju for the first time on May 26. Prior to that Sun Princess and Diamond Princess had already called.
Sapphire Princess is registered in Britain and is a 115,875 ton vessel with 2,670 capacity and over a thousand crew. It will call at Jeju 23 times this year, bringing 50,000 cruise tourists. This will increase to 33 times by 2015.
After the completion of the civilian-military tourism port at Gangjeong, Jeju will accept more cruise companies due to increased capacity.
Princess Cruises responded positively to the province’s requests to extend the time in port to allow for more sightseeing and to use more Jeju products on board. Princess also granted permission for local college students to gain crew practice in port and pledged its participation at the 2014 Asia Cruise Forum JEJU. |