This Day, That Year

Editor’s Note: This year marks the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening-up policy.

In March 1986, a luxury ship began taking tourists on trips down the Yangtze River. The ship was operated by the Great Yangtze Travel Co.

Ship travel was a novel idea for tourists in China decades ago, but now people can travel more.

Cruise travel is a booming sector for tourism, with the number of trips made by domestic cruise ship passen- gers surging to more than 2 million last year, compared with about 10,000 a decade earlier, according to the China Cruise and Yacht Industry Association.

The country is the world’s second-largest market for cruise passengers after the United States.

The 2016-17 China Cruise Industry Development Report by the Ministry of Transport said in 2016 China’s 11 major cruise ports served as home ports for 927 cruise ships, representing year-on-year growth of 72 percent.

The country aims to become the Asia-Pacific region’s largest cruise market by 2020, with the num- ber of cruise passenger trips hitting 4.5 million, according to plans provided by the ministry.

The number is expected to reach 10 million by 2030.

The growing capacity of China’s cruise market has also driven global players to ramp up their investment.

Costa Cruises, a unit of Carnival Corp, the world’s largest leisure travel company, launched a project in November to build a cruise ship specially for the China market named Costa Venezia.

Viking Cruises in Switzerland opened its Chinese office in Shanghai the same month.