Two departments issued documents to promote cruise tourism, Tongcheng Travel: Cruise product sales in 2025 are expected to increase by over 40%.

The Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism recently jointly issued "Several Measures to Further Promote the Development of Cruise Transportation and Tourism Services" (hereinafter referred to as "Several Measures"). Among them, it explicitly proposes 10 specific measures such as expanding the starting routes of cruises, improving the quality of cruise tourism services, and enriching cruise tourism products. Yao Yuanxiang, the director of TONGCHENGTRAVEL's cruise business, said that for a long time, domestic travel companies have mainly sold cruise products with domestic ports of departure for outbound long or short distance routes, as well as short-distance or global routes departing from overseas destinations. The released "Several Measures" prominently place "encouraging Five-Star Red Flag Cruises to actively develop domestic coastal routes", which is of great significance for promoting the development of the domestic coastal route cruise market. "In the future, TONGCHENGTRAVEL will actively develop domestic coastal cruise tourism routes, enrich onboard services and onshore tourism products, and strengthen cooperation with domestic waterway tourism boutique routes, in response to market demand and in collaboration with industry partners." Yao Yuanxiang introduced that since 2025, the number of cruise products available for sale on the TONGCHENGTRAVEL platform has increased by nearly 40% year-on-year as of December 9. Bookings for routes from Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong to popular Southeast Asian destinations such as Singapore and Bali have increased by over 120% compared to the same period last year. In addition, in the overseas cruise market, since 2025, bookings for cruises in the Mediterranean countries and the Persian Gulf routes in the Middle East have increased by over 30% year-on-year. It is worth noting that as "going further, higher quality, and offering more activities" has become a major characteristic of the mass tourism market, the growth rate of users from non-first-tier cities booking overseas cruise products has increased significantly. TONGCHENGTRAVEL data shows that as of December 9, bookings for overseas cruise products in non-first-tier cities like Chengdu, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, Hefei, and Changsha have more than doubled compared to the same period last year. Cities like Shangqiu, Luoyang, Huizhou, and Zhaoqing have also seen significant growth in bookings for overseas cruise products.