Costa Romantica has become the first ship to call into the international cruise terminal in Tianjin, the gateway to Beijing.
The ship will call at Tianjin 10 times this year and is the Italian line’s second ship, after Costa Classica, to be deployed in the Far East.
Since its debut in China in 2006, Costa Cruises has invested about €50 million in the region and increased its capacity fivefold. This year it will make 93 port calls in Chinese ports.
More than 120,000 cruise guests are expected to take a Costa cruise in Asia this year.
The line offers sailings from Shanghai, Tianjin, Hong Kong and Singapore, and includes stopovers in resorts such as Sanya, China; Halong Bay and Da Nang in Vietnam; Okinawa, Kagoshima, Nagasaki and Fukuoka in Japan; and Cheju, South Korea.
President Giabbi Onorato said: “The new terminal is a reward for our pioneering investments and work in this part of the world, and brought to fruition thanks to the invaluable support of the Chinese authorities.
“The ultimate aim is to popularise a new form of vacation in China, a type of holiday that was practically unheard of before in the People’s Republic: namely, cruise vacations.”
Tianjin is about 105 miles southeast of Beijing, a drive of about two and a half hours.
The terminal building at Tianjin can handle up to 4,000 cruise passengers at a time.