Yichang starts construction of the Three Gorges Cruise Center on the Yangtze River, aiming to create the 'Victoria Harbour'

The Yangtze River Three Gorges Cruise Center, with an annual passenger throughput capacity of approximately 2 million, started construction on April 18th on the Pinghu Peninsula in Yichang. The total investment of this project is 6 billion yuan, and it will be developed into a tourist hub for cruise ships in the Three Gorges region. The Pinghu Peninsula will become the Victoria Harbour of Yichang, "said Liu Xiaohua, Secretary of the Party Working Committee of the Three Gorges Tourism New Area Management Committee. The project is designed according to international first-class and leading domestic standards, and has hired Tony Rossi, one of the creators of the National Aquatics Center" Water Cube ", to lead the design. It will become a tourist hub for the Three Gorges and a reception room for Yichang city.

The design of the cruise center harbor function is complete, including cruise terminals, yacht clubs, hotel clusters, commercial complexes, leisure blocks, tourism real estate, and other supporting facilities. The planned land area is about 645 acres, and the total construction area is about 680000 square meters.

This project is a key project in the construction of the Three Gorges National Tourist Resort. After completion, it will become the largest cruise ship homeport in the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River, ending the history of "good ships but no good docks" in the Three Gorges and supporting the development strategy of "one hundred million people, one hundred billion industries" in Yichang's tourism.

The sub project of the Three Gorges Cruise Center project, the Yichang Three Gorges International Cruise Center Terminal Project, will start construction first, with the addition of 10 large cruise berths.

A good horse also needs a good saddle

The Yangtze River has the world's most advanced cruise ships for inland tourism. However, the infrastructure of passenger terminals along the Three Gorges is generally backward, and they also face the embarrassment of "having good horses but not good saddles".

After experiencing a downturn in the entire industry in 2015, the Three Gorges luxury cruise industry has bottomed out and recovered. On April 18th, Changjiang Yong, director of Yichang Transportation Group in Hubei, told Hubei Daily that the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River is the only Grand Canyon in the world that can be visited by cruise ships, and the charm of cruise ships has great potential to be explored. According to statistics, there were about 47 cruise ships operating in the Three Gorges Reservoir area in 2017, receiving over 1.3 million tourists. The number of passengers, passenger occupancy rate, and ticket revenue increased by 15%, 21%, and 30% respectively year-on-year. The ticket prices for luxury cruise ships from Chongqing to Yichang have skyrocketed, with an average of 1900 yuan per person, the best level in nearly three years.

With the recovery of cruise shipping, the shortcomings of outdated passenger terminal infrastructure are becoming increasingly prominent. Starting from January 1st this year, cruise ships passing through the fifth level ship lock of the Three Gorges Dam will no longer enjoy priority rights. Cruise companies from Yichang to Chongqing have to choose to transfer goods at Zigui Port. On average, more than 10 cruise ships dock at Zigui Port every day, with each cruise ship docking for more than 40 hours on average.

The relevant person in charge of the Yangtze River Shipping Overseas Tourism Corporation told reporters that this should have promoted tourism in Zigui, but Maoping Port only has the function of loading and unloading passengers, there is a serious shortage of berths for cruise ships, the supporting construction of the tourism port is not standardized, and catering, leisure, entertainment and other services have not kept up with high quality, often resulting in poor landing experience for tourists. How to turn potential transportation opportunities into tangible tourism economy still requires a lot of effort.

Not only Zigui Port, but also passenger terminals along the route from Yichang to Chongqing commonly suffer from single function and outdated infrastructure.

Jiang Yong believes that the customer base of the cruise industry has undergone structural changes. Previously, the customer base came from foreign countries or Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, mainly for sightseeing tours; Nowadays, domestic tourists are taking the lead and paying more attention to personalized needs such as leisure experience and parent-child relationships. Therefore, the development of tourism route products and hardware support should be continuously upgraded from sightseeing tourism to vacation tourism, and the market calls for high-quality cruise ports.

At present, various regions along the Yangtze River are actively implementing hardware upgrades for ports and terminals. In addition to the Yichang Three Gorges Cruise Center project, in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, Changhang Group and Wuhan Tourism Development Investment Group jointly invested 3 billion yuan to build an international Yangtze River cruise center - Wuhan Cruise Home Port. In addition, Chongqing and Nanjing have also built cruise homeports to connect the Yangtze River Golden Tourism Belt and enhance the overall tourism quality of the Yangtze River.

News source: Hubei Daily