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Ho Chi Minh City in need of exclusive port for cruise liners: insiders

Ho Chi Minh City in need of exclusive port for cruise liners: insiders

Tuesday, August 21, 2018, 15:13 GMT+7

With cruise ships visiting Ho Chi Minh City currently having to dock at cargo ports, tourism industry insiders have suggested developing a new facility to exclusively serve vessels that bring cash-rich tourists to the southern Vietnamese metropolis.

While Ho Chi Minh City has been listed in the itineraries of several cruise ship operators, the Vietnamese city is losing its appeal to cruise tourists as local seaports do not specialize in dealing with this special kind of passenger vessel.

Technically, cruise ships that want to visit Ho Chi Minh City can dock at the city’s ports, or those in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, some 100km away from the southern metropolis.

“On average, more than half of the passengers on every ship arriving in Ba Ria-Vung Tau will go to Ho Chi Minh City [by road],” said Phan Xuan Anh, chairman of the travel and cruise company Viet Excursions.

It will be more time-efficient for tourists if they can set foot on Ho Chi Minh City directly from their cruises.

The problem, however, is that giant vessels carrying cash-rich visitors are not always able to dock at Ho Chi Minh City’s ports as there are no berths left for them, according to industry insiders.

Cruise ships underappreciated

That was what happened to the Ovation of The Seas, one of the world's most innovative ships, as it carried 4,000 passengers of a variety of nationalities, and 1,600 crew members to the municipal Phu My port on April 16.

Even though the cruise ship operator had registered for a berth at the port 18 months in advance, there was no available docking space for the Ovation of The Seas upon its arrival to Ho Chi Minh City waters, leaving the tourists and crew members ‘floating’ off the Vietnamese city.

“The port was simply filled with cargo ships and there was no room left for the cruise ship to berth,” Ha Bich Lien, a senior advisor to two leading shipping lines from the U.S. and Germany, said at a tourism conference on August 16.

The Ovation of The Seas has therefore canceled its plan to bring another 4,800 visitors to Ho Chi Minh City on October 7 as there is no anchorage space.

Likewise, a trip planned for September 1 of the Voyager of the Seas cruise vessel with 2,800 passengers onboard has been scrapped for the same reason.

The major cruise ships in the world can carry a very large number of tourists, from 3,000 to 5,000 per trip, most of whom are European and can spend an average of about US$100 per person per day when in their destination.

Failing to allow those ships to dock at ports in Ho Chi Minh City will cause many travel companies to lose customers, and local businesses and services to miss a large amount of revenue, according to industry insiders.

Holland America Volendam Cruise Ship lands at a port in the Vietnamese southern province of Ba Ria – Vung Tau. Photo: Tuoi Tre
Holland America Volendam Cruise Ship lands at a port in the southern Vietnamese province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Proposed solutions

According to travel and cruise companies, the Saigon River is still the most suitable area for disembarkation of cruise ships, despite having some curved sections that do not accommodate ships longer than 180 meters to pass.

Industry insiders said at the August 16 dialogue that cruise ships do not necessarily dock at ports in Ho Chi Minh City, but stay ashore and have passengers transported to the mainland by tender boats.

“For example, cruise ships can go to [the outlying] Can Gio [District], and transfer passengers to smaller boats to head for the inner city,” Anh of Viet Excursions elaborated.

The suggestion, serving as a temporary solution to the lack of berths at local cargo ports, received support from attendees at the event.

But Vo Anh Tai, director of Saigontourist, a leading state-owned travel company, believed that it would be better if Ho Chi Minh City has a port exclusively meant for cruise liners.

Tai said it is possible to develop seaports capable of accommodating ships of up to 36,000 DWT near the city’s downtown areas.

“If there are ports specializing in serving cruise ships, visitors can save time traveling from Ba Ria-Vung Tau to Ho Chi Minh City, which means they can prolong their stay here,” Tai added.

The Saigontourist director noted that the cruise home port should also be equipped with other amenities, such as shopping and dining services, to cater to the needs of wealthy holidaymakers and encourage them to spend more.

“Otherwise, it will be difficult to attract investors for the cruise liner ports if the only source of revenue is to charge docking fees,” Tai concluded.

Yet the call for investment into cruise home ports has been unanswered for years.

In the meantime, the administration of Ba Ria-Vung Tau has asked operators of the province’s seaports to reserve berths to receive international cruise ships, according to Trinh Hang, director of the provincial department of tourism.

This is a temporary move while local authorities seek investors to develop a cruise home port, Hang added.

However, a representative of SSA Marine, a U.S.-based enterprise specializing in container terminal and cargo operations, said it is ‘unesthetic’ for luxury tourists to disembark from a cruise ship at a cargo port.

SSA Marine is willing to invest in developing a cruise ship port in the coastal province, “so long as local authorities are able to provide a suitable location,” the representative said.

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Bao Anh / Tuoi Tre News

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