Economic woes hit Yangtze River cruise industry

A pedestrian street lined with luxury shops, a cinema, a circuit racetrack and even a rooftop golf court and helipad. No, it's not a pocket of one of the world's top cities, but facilities found aboard four of the world's largest river cruise ships, Yangtze Gold 2 and Yangtze Gold 3 and their sister ships, Gold 5 and Gold 6, which were put into service on the Yangtze River in May and June.

The four luxury cruise ships, along with another ship also put into service in June, has added another 3,000 seats to the Yangtze River cruise market and represents part of a plan by the Chongqing municipal government to boost tourism on the Three Gorges.

But the launch of the luxury ships has not delivered the promised boom to tourism.

The slowdown of economic growth nationwide and globally has resulted in river cruise companies experiencing a fall in customers.

These two factors have forced some old river cruise ships to slash the price of a cruise from 2,500 yuan ($393) to 1,500 to 2,000 yuan.

In an effort to boost the market, the tourism authority has organized a month-long promotional activity in August and river cruise companies have offered promotions on family trips and discounted tickets.

Two companies, Century Cruises and the Yangtze Gold Cruises, have decided to delay the date of the maiden voyage of their cruise ships, in a move aimed at buffering market pressure.

Both companies have ships that were due to be unveiled in October. Now both have decided to delay the maiden voyage to the end of this year.

The lacklustre state of the industry has raised questions on whether the rapid of the river cruise industry went too far.

"So far (the sudden increase in number of luxury ships) has given the market an unprecedented strike," said Li Qing, a market manager at Century Cruises, which has five five-star river cruise ships on the Yangtze River.

"We need to follow the patterns of development of the market," Li said, adding that it might take another two or three years for the river cruise market to mature.

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