Busan Port Authority(BPA, President WOO Ye-jong) stated that Asia’s largest cruise ship, Ovation of the Seas, with 4,600 passengers and 1,600 crew will call at Busan Port for the first time on June 30th.

Ovation of the Seas is a cruise ship operating for the world’s second largest cruise liner, Royal Caribbean International (RCI). It is the largest cruise ship in Asia(168,000t) equipped with 2,000 cabins and was built in April this year.

Royal Caribbean International deployed Ovation of the Seas in the fast growing Asian market along with the same sized cruise ship, Quantum of the Seas.

Ovation of the Seas will be deployed in the Southeast region at the beginning of the year and the autumn, in the Northeast region in the summer and the Oceania region in the winter, while Quantum of the Seas will be deployed in the Northeast region throughout the year.

BPA Port Operation Division director NAM Ki-kwan said “In accordance with the growing demand of cruises, we will carry out facility reinforcement at Youngdo Int’l Cruise Terminal this year and plan to develop berth facilities that can accommodate the world’s largest cruise ship by 2018. We are also working with related organizations to simplify entry procedures for passengers.”

Most of the passengers are Chinese and they will tour major tourist attractions in Haeundae, Beomeosa, and etc. using 112 buses. After visiting Busan and Nagasaki, they go back to Tianjin China.

As the number of Chinese tourists in Busan Port skyrocketed, a total of 184,000 Chinese tourists entered the port as of June, a 61 percent rise year on year.

The number of cruise passengers was 200,000 in 2013, 244,000 in 2014, but decreased to 162,000 last year due to MERS.

However, the number of passengers is expected to tripple to 450,000 this year.

Source : BPA website (http://www.busanpa.com/eng/Board.do?mode=view&idx=17828&mCode=MN0050)