Halong International Passenger Terminal greets first five-star cruise

The five-star luxury cruise brought more than 3,000 passengers and crew members to Halong

The Celebrity Millennium cruise from the US’ Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines departed from Hong Kong carrying more than 2,000 passengers and nearly 1,000 crew members of different nationalities, called on the world wonder Halong Bay and other tourism attractions in Quang Ninh.

A modern and luxurious vessel, Celebrity Millennium is specialised in running on Asia and South Pacific journeys. The cruise departed the Vietnamese port in the afternoon of November 28, 2018.

Welcoming the first international passenger cruise is the first victory in Quang Ninh’s tourism development journey as it opens new spaces for international tourism and economic co-operation and development.

By entering into commercial operations, Halong International Passenger Terminal, Vietnam’s first specialised terminal built by a private company earmarked to serve international visitors, is expected to help lure elite visitors to the heritage city, spurring local tourism development.

In fact, the seaport system in many Vietnamese localities currently carries a dual role: receiving both passenger cruises and freight ships, therefore failing to attract domestic and international passenger cruises.

In many locations, the ports simply serve as transit or landing points for ships with poor associated technical and service facilities.

In many cases, passengers need to transit from a distance before reaching the ports. This practice is a bottleneck hindering cruise tourism development and dampening the reputation of local tourism attractions.

As the cost for building a passenger terminal is huge, no localities or investors have injected money into building such ports in Vietnam. Thus, Quang Ninh’s mobilising private sector capital to build this kind of port is of great significance not only for provincial development, but also for opening new horizons for national cruise tourism.

While it is expected to be hard to reach a profit with a specialised passenger terminal in the first several years, it attests to Quang Ninh’s strong commitment to “going green.”

This is a focal transport infrastructure projects helping the province attract more investment capital for its socioeconomic development.

Quang Ninh's leader greets the cruise captain

According to Nguyen Duc Long, Chairman of the Quang Ninh People’s Committee, Halong International Passenger Terminal will play a significant role in economic development and the public-private partnership model applied in building the terminal is an effective investment model that is deployed in a raft of major transport projects in the province.

The leader expressed his hope to receive more international cruises and tourists to Halong in particular and Quang Ninh in general.

Earlier, on November 22, the Vietnam Maritime Administration (under the Ministry of Transport) issued a document approving the operation of Halong International Passenger Terminal.

The construction of the port project began in November 2017 with the total capital of VND1.1 trillion ($47.8 million) under the PPP format between Sun Group and Quang Ninh province. The work consists of a quay, a marina, a passenger terminal, and an administrative building, with the 524m quay being able to receive two cruise ships at the same time, each with the capacity of up to 225,000GRT and a total of 8,460 passengers and crew members. The five-star, three-storey passenger terminal covers a total of 13,500sq.m, which was designed by Bill Bensley, one of the globe’s five most acclaimed architects.

The terminal carries the quintessence of both Vietnamese and European culture and architecture, resembling part of Hoi An ancient town in the central region in outer appearance, while its sophisticated inner décor brings to mind an ocean cruiser from the 13^th century with wooden poles and steel and wooden ceilings.

The terminal wall features unique design with 27 photo frames depicting nautical charts and old ships.

The Halong terminal is expected to welcome 10 international cruises by the end of the year, laying the premises for the province to usher in a new chapter of tourism development with the number of international arrivals to far surpass the 12 million arrivals benchmark (5.2 million foreign arrivals) set in 2018.