Gangwon Tourism Organization (CEO Kang Oki) recently announced that Holland America Cruise lines had confirmed 5 calls at port of Sokcho. Holland America Cruise is a U.S. cruise line with fleet of 11 cruise ships under Carnival Corporation & plc, the world’s largest cruise group, and has confirmed 1 call in 2023, 2 calls in 2024, and 2 calls in 2025. The M/S Westerdam, which is scheduled to call at Sokcho Port, is known to be an 80,000-ton medium-sized ship with about 2,000 people on board. Park Wonshik, head of MICE/Cruise team, said, “we invited the vice president of the Holland America cruise lines and conducted a five-day FAM tour in Sokcho, nearby Goseong, and Gangneung last fall, and I feel very rewarded because it led to good results. We found FAM tour is one of the most effective sales tools as they are fascinated by Gangwon-do’s outstanding natural scenery including Seoraksan National Park and colorful local culture and it often leads to successful hosting of the cruise calls at Sokcho port. Therefore, We are aiming at increasing the FAM tour this year and currently are talking to several cruise companies. They also announced the full-fledged launch of the Gangwon-do-type fly-cruise pilot project which was introduced last year. The main idea of the business is to target Taiwan market in connection with 2 cruise departures from Sokcho Port scheduled on June 12 and 17 and the direct flights between Yangyang International Airport and Taipei, Taiwan. In cooperation with Lotte Tour Development, the cruise operator had a business briefing session towards Taiwanese travel agencies in February and will commence sourcing from March in earnest. So far, over 98% of the passengers on Sokcho homeport cruise are Korean, but the strategy is to promote the inflow of foreign tourists in order to expand the diversification of sourcing markets and increase tourists’ stay and expanses by conducting pre/post tour in Gangwon province. Gangwon Tourism Organization said they will carefully monitor the results of the pilot project and expand to other countries in the future as it is the first attempt in Korea to attract foreign tourists to the cruise products out of Sokcho port.
SOPHIA KIM
Asia Journal
