The Marine Patrol Boat Escorted The Cruise Ship To Safety. (Photo Provided By Chongqing Maritime Safety Bureau)
Editor's Notes
In 2022, the GDP of the Yangtze River Economic Belt reached approximately 56 trillion yuan, accounting for 46.3% of the national GDP, regarded as an important growth pole of China's high-quality economic development. Within the Belt, the port and shipping industry along the river plays a fundamental, pioneering, and service-oriented role. During this year's “two sessions”, General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that high-quality development is the first and foremost task. Guided by General Secretary Xi Jinping, the shipping industry along the river has taken prompt actions to maintain firm strategic resolve, pursue progress while ensuring stability, and endeavor to achieve effective improvement in economic quality and reasonable growth in quantity, and take new steps to promote overall economic improvement.
In order to have an in-depth understanding of the development status of shipping along the Yangtze River, journalists recently went to the front line of the Yangtze River to interview industry managers, Hong Kong and shipping enterprises and related industries along the route to investigate the implementation effect of shipping policies. In the form of a series of reports, practical achievements such as strengthening the weak points of water transport infrastructure, the smart and green transformation of port and shipping industry, upgrading of water tourism passenger transport, and synergistic agglomeration of upstream and downstream industries will be presented to further boost the high-quality development of shipping along the Yangtze River. Stay tuned.
In April, the most beautiful day in the world, Chongqing, the Landscape city, attracts tourists from all over the country. They enjoy the evening breeze and the city's night scene from both sides of the two rivers; alternatively, they can have a picturesque trip eastward to the Three Gorges by cruise.
With the May Day holiday coming soon, viewing the Yangtze River by cruise goes viral again. Faced with strong market demand, tourism and passenger transportation companies have quickly responded by launching featured products while improving service quality to offer tourists a more comfortable and enjoyable travel experience. The “Spring Breeze Action” has been carried out by the Yangtze River Maritime Safety Administration(MSA) for four consecutive years, benefiting enterprises by not only accurately solving many difficulties in resuming operations but also further ensuring the safety of the service to guarantee the safe travel of the people.
The enthusiasm for cruise travel continues in the off-season as the consumer market is booming.
Since the beginning of this year, the Yangtze River cruise economy has witnessed a vigorous recovery. Until now, 47 inter-provincial tourist ships have resumed operation, with a resumption rate of 94%, driving the development of the cruise economy which caused explosive growth in the consumption market for the two-river tours in Chongqing and inter-provincial tours along the trunk line of the Yangtze River. According to statistics from the Chongqing Cruise Center, the cumulative number of visitors to the two rivers tours was 832,000 from January to March of this year, 3.5 times that of the same period in 2022 and 112.1% in 2019. The total departures of cruises from the Yangtze River's Three Gorges counted 575, 77.6% of the same period in 2019, carrying 144,200 passengers in total, 116.57% of the same period in 2019.
Zheng Jianjun, deputy general manager of Chongqing Passenger Ship General Company told the reporter, "Lately, the number of tourists soared, exceeding our expectations. During the first quarter, our company received a total of 286,500 tourists, far surpassing the level of the same period in 2019. Recently, the water level of the two rivers has been lower, decreasing the voyages of cruises, but the number of tourists has increased. In the same quarter, our night cruise's loading rate reached 80%, about 10 percentage points higher than the same period in 2019."
Chongqing Dongjiang Industrial Co., Ltd. mainly operates in inter-provincial tourism alongside the Yangtze River with the series of Victoria Cruises. The cruises have gradually resumed operations since March 12th with 95% loading rate of each voyage. "The enthusiasm for cruise travel continues in the off-season," said Zhou Zhuo, the company's executive director. In addition, June is usually the off-season when the national college entrance examination is held in China, with ship ticket booking rates ranging from 60% to 70% in previous years. However, the ticket booking rate for June has reached 90% this year.
Cruise products enrich the tourist experience
As the cruise travelling rapidly heats up, various tourist transportation companies respond quickly to market demand by launching signature voyages and brand products to bring tourists a refreshing experience.
The Yangtze 3 Cruise is a ship featuring cultural quality tourism in domestic waterway passenger transportation by the Ministry of Transport of the PRC. “Since this year, we have explored and developed activities of the Yangtze Story Exhibition for passengers on board based on the needs and hobbies of different tourist groups. New performances with strong regional characteristics, such as Chuanjiang Chants in Sichuan Province and Chongqing, Tujia hand-swinging dance in Chongqing, and Intangible Cultural Heritage-Cheongsam Show, have been arranged to enrich the tourists' experience,” said Zhan Li, secretary of the CPC and general manager of Chongqing Changjiang Shipping Corporation.
“This is my first cruise and I enjoyed the magnificent scenery of Qutang Gorge and Wu Gorge along the way. I watched many local performances and experienced the strong Yangtze River culture on board. It was great!" said a passenger, disembarking from the Yangtze 3 Cruise on April 17th.
Ferries are the best way for tourists to perceive the picturesque Chongqing. This year, Chongqing Passenger Ship General Company brought visual feasts of light and shadow to tourists by introducing special tours such as Prefect Course, Classic Course Sunset Course, and four new brand courses including Ferry Along Two Rivers and Boat Tour of Islands.
It is worth noticing that many companies have also provided personalized marketing products and diversified product sales based on changes in demands of market consumption, such as group training, student research and summer camps, team building of companies, and other activities.
Provide professional service and guarantee the “Spring Breeze Action” benefits enterprises in practice.
While the accelerated recovery of consumer demand has brought travel and passenger transportation companies back to life, it also raises new challenges. To be specific, many companies reported severe crew losses in the past two years, and the number of current crew members is difficult to meet the sailing need. A large number of ships are waiting for the resumption of service. The Yangtze River Maritime Department needs to efficiently complete safety inspections before ships' resumption so as to ensure vessels can be put into operation promptly.
“ ‘Spring Breeze Campaign’ we launched at the beginning of this year involves many measures related to high-quality services in the development of the Yangtze River cruise economy. For example, optimizing the ‘Internet+ Maritime Affairs' services to improve the efficiency of government affairs processing; organizing a comprehensive safety inspection, shore-based administrative staff training, ship-shore joint drills, and dynamic tracing and monitoring of passenger ships during the voyage. In addition, the construction of the Yangtze River shipping meteorological service alliance has been further improved the ability to safely forecast the water traffic in the Yangtze River's trunk channel," said Mr. Zuo Zhongjun, the Deputy Director of the Yangtze River MSA. He added that the tasks will be quickly rearranged to provide higher-quality maritime services to meet the needs of enterprises' development in the future.”
To this end, the Chongqing MSA has stepped up the organization of the crew qualification examination. In the first quarter of this year, the administration held 6 special training sessions about crew turnover in passenger ships for 329 persons in total, conducted 103 inspections on the performance of the crew's duty, and trained 522 persons on basic inland safety and specialized certification of passenger ships.
“We are very grateful to the Yangtze River Maritime Department for their efforts to organize the crew examination, so that we can put more shipping capacity into the market, which truly helped us solve a big problem!” Many passenger transportation companies have praised such prompt and thoughtful service measures.
As a water traffic safety supervision department, the Yangtze River Maritime Department also noted that the current drawdown period with the declining water line of the Three Gorges Reservoir, causes local water flow turbulence and ships are prone to accidents such as grounding or collision.
"We have strengthened communication and contact with meteorological and hydrological departments, obtained early warning information through multiple channels, and timely and accurately transmitted the information point-to-point to the heads of passenger ship companies, safety management personnel and ship captains under the jurisdiction. Meanwhile, we manage to provide as good navigational environments for large passenger ships as possible by coordinating the stationing of emergency forces in key navigation sections and optimizing beacon deployment in winding and narrow waters. In addition, maritime authorities have strengthened navigation monitoring of passenger ships and on-site maintenance of key navigation sections, reminding passing ships to strengthen contact and avoid collisions to ensure navigation safety." said Li Hui, director of the Chongqing MSA's Command Center.
To cope with the resumption of a large number of provincial passenger cruises, the Yangtze River MSA organized law enforcement officers in maritime departments from Chongqing, Yichang and the Three Gorges to carry out safety inspections for all passenger ships before the resumption and urge them to rectify the problems identified during the inspection. Additionally, they guided passenger transportation companies to conduct comprehensive safety inspections, safety knowledge training and emergency drills, actively promote the compilation and implementation of the "One Ship, One Policy" safety risk prevention and control manual for tourist ships in port, to consolidate the foundation of safety management for vessels involved in passenger transport.
Chongqing Maritime Safety Administration has organized the implementation of "maritime + ship inspection + company" joint inspection on 100% of all resumed passenger cruises under its jurisdiction, and conducted comprehensive "physical examination" on main and auxiliary power equipment, fire and lifesaving equipment and other equipment of passenger ships against the list of key inspection items, so as to prevent ships sailing "with illness". Maritime authorities on the Yangtze River will further supervise and inspect the "zero discharge" of pollutants from cruise ships to promote green development of the Yangtze Economic Belt.
Keep fair competition to promote the healthy development of the industry
Passenger transportation companies operating within the Yangtze River are optimistic about the development of the future market as the new ships are under construction and will be gradually put into operation. Currently, the series of Victoria Cruises has two new vessels being built, projected to be operational in October 2024 and April 2025 respectively. Chongqing Grand Century Cruise Co., Ltd. also plans to add five more ships within three years while considering opening a new route from Yichang to Fengjie.
In interviews, various passenger transportation companies expressed their voluntary willingness to abide by industry rules to promote high-quality development of the Yangtze River mainline cruise economy, maintain a calm mindset, maintain benign competition, and promote healthy and sustainable industry development.
China Changjiang Shipping Group Corporation is an industrial bellwether across the nation. “We not only need to fulfill the responsibilities as a corporate but also shoulder the responsibility of guiding the development of the industry. In the next stage, the company will provide more refined cruise products to the market by subdividing product levels to ensure the comfort and satisfaction of tourists," said Zhan Li.
Zhou Zhuo believes that the cruise industry needs to establish a pricing model that matches the price with the value of products to maintain the industry's vitality. "The more important thing is that we need to seize this opportunity to enhance the industry's influence to make inland tourism alongside the Yangtze River a highlight internationally.”
The flourishing development of the industry tightly relies on macro guidance from the government. Relevant management departments are expected to control overall capacity, maintain the balance of demand and supply, accelerate the construction of large dedicated wharves for passenger ships in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, speed up channel dredging so as to provide more convenient conditions for the docking of ships and the boarding of tourists.
The Yangtze River Maritime Safety Administration will also further improve its maritime service level with more efforts of the “Spring Breeze Action”, comprehensively promote reforms to streamline the government, and improve government services in maritime departments, and give full play to its functional advantages to accurately solve the problems encountered in the development of enterprises, and create a better business environment for the high-quality development of Yangtze River shipping.
Reprinted from: China Communications News