More int’l cruises set to dock in Phl

SINGAPORE — More international cruise companies have started to express interest to dock in the Philippines, further strengthening the government’s bid to make the country a major hub for international cruise ships.

Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo on Thursday revealed the agency was in discussions with cruise giants Carnival Cruise Line and the Genting Group.

“I’ve been meeting with the executives of Carnival Corp. and Genting. Both agreed that the Philippines has great potential to become one of Asia’s cruise hubs,” Teo said.

Star Cruises, a subsidiary of Genting Hong Kong, earlier announced its fleet flagship, Superstar Virgo, was set to establish Manila as its new home port this summer. This is the first time a company has chosen the city as its vessel’s base.

Michael Goh, SVP of Genting’s Dream Cruise Line, said the ships would start docking in Manila waters in March until May.

He said Superstar Virgo would then offer a five-day cruise itinerary starting from Manila as its home port, going to Laoag, then Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and finally to Hong Kong, before going back to Manila.

“It’s the first time we’ll do it and we want to test out the market. And we have confidence about it,” Goh said in an interview.

From January to October 2016, a total of 19 cruise ships carrying 24,712 passengers made calls to the Philippines. This was still short of the 72,350 passenger target set by the DOT under its National Cruise Tourism Strategy.

This year’s target, meanwhile, is to attract 85 port calls, bringing in 75,000 travelers into the country.

Superstar Virgo has a passenger capacity of 1,870.

Tourism undersecretary for Administration Rolando Canizal said having a cruise home port in Manila would make it more affordable and convenient for locals to buy cruise packages.

“What’s important about it is it will allow the Filipinos to take the cruise from Manila. This means to say Flipinos don’t have to go to Hong Kong to take the cruise because they can just take the cruise from Manila,” the official said.

Meanwhile, Canizal said the DOT was scheduled to meet with representatives of Royal Caribbean next week.

“The vice president ( of Royal Caribbean) will be seeing the Tourism Minister on Monday to discuss how we’ll be able to work with them, not only in terms of attracting more cruise visits to the Philippines, but more in terms of how they would be able to help us develop our cruise products and infrastructure,” he said.