The Joy Cruise is a dream cruise ship that started sailing last summer, with a horrific displacement of 160,000 tons, this is more than an aircraft carrier are playing all the cruise ships are all in the Chinese style of the main style, which is to cater to the needs of Chinese tourists to experience, but only one year, this cruise ship have announced that they are going to launch the Chinese market, so what is the ultimate reason for it?
The reason is:
Chinese cruise market is already saturated, and the phenomenon of supply exceeds demand, cruise lines around the world piled up, and Chinese tourists are accustomed to the cruise ship as a means of transportation, and very few people in the cruise ship spending as well as to experience the interior of the cruise ship services.
After running for a year, the company announced that it would leave the market, saying that the Joy Cruise, which is tailor-made for Chinese tourists, will leave the Chinese market in April next year
Today, a group of travel agents received a notice issued by Novelty Cruises saying that the company's Novelty Cruise Joy will leave the Chinese market in April 2019 and sail on the Alaskan route. Compared with the end of June last year, "Joy" to "sea first class" in the name of high-profile into the Shanghai home port scene, today's notice is quite surprising.
Cruise ships tailored for the Chinese market will soon leave
It is understood that, after leaving the Chinese market, the Joy will be stationed in Alaska in the summer of 2019, and in the winter of 2019-2020 sailing to the west coast of the United States and Mexico. The tentative itinerary is to leave Shanghai on April 10 and arrive in Seattle on April 26th.
For the reason of Joy's departure, Novotel Cruises said in the notice that the adjustment is necessary for the company's overall strategic planning, and that Novotel Cruises' confidence in the Chinese market has not changed, and its determination for long-term development in China is even stronger.
Such a statement is obviously not enough to answer the questions hovering in people's minds. After all, when it entered Shanghai last June, officials said the cruise ship was tailor-made for Chinese tourists.
RELATED NOTICE
Looking at the design of the cruise ship, Joy, which entered the Chinese market last year as a new ship, did put some effort into creating a Chinese character.
For example, the phoenix and auspicious cloud patterns on the ship's hull were designed by Chinese designer Tan Ping, revealing a strong Chinese style; all the names of facilities, cue cards and menus in the ship's cabins are in Chinese, with English fonts scaled down and placed in the lower rows to bring Chinese tourists closer;
On the dinner menu, in addition to Chinese cuisine such as Buddha jumping over the wall, scallops, wagyu beef and other ingredients have been processed in favor of Chinese-style The ship also offers soybean milk doughnuts and spicy hot pots.
The ship's activities even include tai chi and square dancing taught by teachers. In order to cater to the needs of Chinese tourists who like to "buy and buy", the duty-free store area on board is 900 square meters large, which is larger than that of a normal cruise ship.
The Joy Bazaar's Chinese font is larger than its English counterpart
However, such a large cruise liner, which has a "Chinese style" everywhere, announced today that it will leave China next year after just one year of operation in the Chinese market on June 28 this year and has no plans to return to China until 2020, making one wonder what is behind this change of heart. Plans to return to the Chinese market until 2020 are not, one has to wonder the reasons behind this shift.
70,000-ton ship to replace Joy
A traveler who has traveled on a number of Novozymes' cruise ships told Jiefang Daily.
However, the traveler also admitted that she asked Joy's shops about their business when she was on the ship, and felt that she could not make much money.
When you take a cruise abroad, you need to queue up to book the SPA on board, and judging from the situation, the SPA bookings on the Joy will not exceed 5% of the number of tourists, so it is obviously difficult to meet the operator's expectations with such a booking rate.
In addition, the ship's photography service is also difficult to meet the target, follow the shooting is almost none; duty-free cosmetics have some people to buy, but high-priced jewelry and watches are less people, many tourists would rather go ashore in Japan to buy.
Crystal lamps and staircases inside the Joy cruise ship
The source believes that many Chinese tourists still treat cruise ships as a means of transportation, rather than a destination and entertainment, and therefore spend very little money after boarding the ship.
Generally speaking, the cost of a ticket for an ordinary room on the Joy from Shanghai is up to more than 4,000 yuan, and in the off-season it is not even sold at that price, so if tourists on board the ship with such fares rarely participate in the ship's fee-based programs, it is almost a foregone conclusion that the Joy, with its 1,800 crewmembers and service personnel, is struggling in its operation, and it just didn't think that the notice of the Joy's temporary departure from China would come so quickly. It's just that I didn't expect the notice to come so quickly.
According to the Novocain notice, after the Joy leaves, the company will bring a 70,000-ton Novocain Courageous to the Chinese market in 2020, which will operate seasonally in China and will have a tonnage not unlike that of the 160,000-ton Joy.
Intriguingly, the emphasis on the Courageous is no longer on the Chinese style that characterized the arrival of the Joy, but on internationalization.
The notice describes the Courageous as "international in character, both in terms of the dining environment and the cruise atmosphere."
Multiple Large Cruise Ships Temporarily Leave China Market
In fact, it is not a single ship, the Novelty Joy, that has chosen to temporarily leave the Chinese market. Public information shows that at the beginning of last year, operating in China for up to 3 years of the Sapphire Princess chose to leave China, was sent to Europe to Singapore routes;
Then Princess Cruises announced that in September of this year, Shengshi Princess will also be temporarily out of China, transferred to the Australian cruise market operations; last September, Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Seas announced that it was leaving the Chinese market, assigned to the U.S. market; this year, February, the Costa Cruises' Victoria ship. Costa Cruises' Victoria also left the Chinese market, to the European market.
And in March this year, China's first local luxury cruise company Tianhai Cruises under the New Century Cruise, was also sold by Ctrip and Royal Caribbean, Marella Cruises under the TUI Group to take over, the industry as a local business in the cruise business to explore a "Waterloo".
"Joy" spokesman Wang Leehom and the special design of the phoenix pattern
For once piled up in the Chinese market to find gold cruise ships have to leave, some industry experts said this is the inevitable result of China's cruise market supply exceeds demand.
China's cruise market started late and has huge space, making many international cruise companies see business opportunities, but China's unique cruise sales model and product oversupply has led to increasingly fierce price competition, profit margins greatly reduced, but also affect the quality of the cruise tour.
A portion of the large cruise ships temporarily left the Chinese market, for the next supply-side reform of the cruise product is more beneficial than harmful, the entire cruise tourism market may therefore get a new space for development.