Full steam ahead

Royal Caribbean operates two world-class ships in China, with Shanghai as their homeport.

"Shanghai is vitally important to our business and the market is growing," said Goldstein.

According to the 2013 Shanghai Cruise Tourism Festival, Wusongkou International Cruise Terminal is the largest in Asia and received 120 cruise ships and 285,000 passengers in 2012. This year 256 international cruise liners are expected to berth here, with 608,000 passengers disembarking.

Shen Xiaosu, deputy director of the city's Urban Construction and Communications Commission, said Shanghai should "take the opportunity as incomes surge and further nurture the cruise market by building the city into an important homeport for major liners".

However, Shanghai is facing major competition from other coastal destinations, including Tianjin, Qingdao, Hong Kong and Singapore.

For Goldstein, he is more than excited to see the competition and looking forward to develop more cruise liners with the ports.

"We are very pleased that cities including Shanghai, Tianjin, Hong Kong and Singapore built these fantastic ports. Every one of the cities had serious limitations just a few years ago, and now they are building some of the greatest cruise terminals in the world," he said.

As for Shanghai, it is important to strengthen connections with South Korea, Japan and even Russia, so that we can bring new ships, more ships, bigger ships, he added.

Hong Kong will probably benefit, in weather terms, from the early spring and late fall.

But Shanghai is going to do well no matter what Hong Kong does, based on the immense market here, Goldstein said.

And the seasons in China and Australia are well suited in terms of cruising.

The Asian cruise market today is similar to the US in the 1980s.

Asians now take about 1.5 million cruises a year, similar to the 1.4 million in US some 30 years ago. The number of US voyagers has grown to about 12 million, and Asia accounts for only 6 to 7 percent of the world's total cruises.

When you look at the income and wealth growth in China, especially in the coastal cities, we believe the potential is huge. We also want to introduce Royal Caribbean to inland cities, he added.

Focus

The company, which has focused on destinations within Asia for Chinese customers, will eventually seek to take them to distant shores, such as Europe.

The global cruise market is estimated to grow 4.5 percent this year to $36.2 billion, according to industry data and analysis provider Cruise Market Watch.

Meanwhile, world giants are focusing on the China market.

Star Cruises announced that Xiamen will be its new homeport for three new itineraries from October. Costa Cruises said it will offer the first roundtrip world cruise from China next year. The Costa Atlantica will depart Shanghai on March 22 on an 83-day cruise.

"Cruising, as a new product in China, has a market penetration that is still very low when compared to other markets we operate in," said Gianni Onorato, president of Costa Crociere, the parent company of Costa Cruises.

"It is not easy to predict how big the China market will be in 10 or 20 years."