Cruise Operators Target Asian Travelers, Pitching Short Trips From Local Ports

I’ve never been on a cruise before (unless you count “The Love Boat” 🙂 ), nor has my mother (she’s been wanting to go on one for a while.) Well, it looks like a lot of Asians haven’t gone either. From the Wall Street Journal article, “Cruise Operators Target Asian Travelers, Pitching Short Trips From Local Ports,” it sounds like there is a huge opportunity for cruise companies in Asia:

“Although Asia accounted for less than 5% of the global cruise market last year, the number of Asians taking cruises annually will swell to 1.5 million by 2010, up 40% from 2005, according to a forecast by Ocean Shipping Consultants Ltd. That’s faster growth than the 30% rise expected over the period in the more mature North American market, which had about 9.3 million cruise passengers in 2005…Teddy Tsang, a 48-year-old publishing plant manager in Hong Kong, took a four-day cruise on the Rhapsody in February with his wife and daughter after seeing “a lot of newspaper ads” in local Chinese-language papers touting the company’s cruises and hearing recommendations from friends. His only previous cruise on a gambling ship had left him unimpressed. “I went a few times to the casino, but I didn’t want to spend the whole day gambling,” he says. But after the latest cruise, which cost around $385 per person, he enthused about a dinner of herb-crusted cod with saffron-champagne sauce and the staff’s swift delivery of extra towels to his cabin.”

One of my mother’s friend’s family has gone on quite a few cruises. I wonder – how common is it for Asian Americans to go on cruises? To be honest, I really don’t know that many people who have gone on cruises. If you’ve gone on a cruise – where did you go? And did you have fun? I’m always seeing those Royal Caribbean tv commercials and have always wondered if people have as much fun as the commercials make out cruises to be (of course, you never see an Asian Americans in those commercials…that’s an untapped market – especially for all those Asians and Asian Americans who like to gamble. :-).