The Bahamian-flagged cruise ship Silver Muse with 333 foreign travelers on board on Sunday arrived in Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa Province, south-central Vietnam. 

The cruise ship departed from Singapore for Ho Chi Minh City and later Nha Trang.

After leaving Nha Trang, it will arrive in the central city of Da Nang City before heading to Hong Kong.

The passengers on the cruise ship are from Germany, Canada, Australia, Colombia, Thailand, and China, according to the Khanh Hoa Department of Tourism.

They have a choice of one of the four following tours:

In the first tour, called Vietnam Biking Experience, the tourists visit Loc Tho Pagoda, Xuan Lac Communal House, the Old House of Mr. Hai, Po Nagar Tower and Tram Huong Tower, and then return to the cruise ship.

For the second tour—Nha Trang and Cham Tower, they visit Long Son Pagoda, Christ the King Cathedral, Po Nagar Tower, and Dam Market before returning to the ship.

For the third choice, Nha Trang River Cruise, the tourists visit to Po Nagar Tower, the Old House of Mr. Hai, the communal house of Phu Vinh Village, and Vinh Ngoc Market, and go shopping at the Nha Trang Center.

In the fourth tour, named Nha Trang by Pedicab, the tourists experience pedicabs while visiting Nha Trang City, then visit Dam Market.

The Silver Muse is 213 meters long and 26 meters wide and has a tonnage of 40,700 metric tons. The total investment in the cruise ship is some US$380 million.

According to local travel companies, each cruise ship often has 300-4,000 tourists and crew members.

Cruise passengers are high-end tourists who are willing to pay for tourism products and services. If localities can take advantage of these travelers, they can earn large revenue.

They do not stay overnight on the mainland but stay in a destination for eight to 12 hours each and then return to their cruise ships.

They prefer tours to rural areas and traditional craft villages and studying local culture.

However, the spending of foreign passengers of some luxury cruise ships to Khanh Hoa remains low, according to some local travel companies.

They use all-in services on cruise tours, so local tourism cannot earn much from them.

Local souvenirs and specialties will attract them but these products are not diversified, while many foreign tourists are still overcharged.

A leader of the Khanh Hoa Department of Tourism said the return of international visitors via cruise ships is an opportunity to promote tourism of Nha Trang City and Khanh Hoa Province as a whole to international tourists, especially those from Europe.

Khanh Hoa set a target to welcome some four million travelers this year, including 2.5 million domestic tourists and 1.5 million foreign guests, and earn roughly VND21 trillion (US$885.9 million) in tourism revenue.

The high-end cruise ship Mein Schiff with 2,500 European passengers on board planned to dock in Nha Trang on Saturday but it canceled the plan due to bad weather conditions.

Khanh Hoa welcomed the first cruise ship last Wednesday. The Marshall Islands-flagged Seven Seas Explorer carried 637 travelers from the U.S., New Zealand, Mexico, Spain, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, and Hong Kong to the Vietnamese coastal province.

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