Does Singapore’s 5-year deal with Disney Cruise Line mean ship has sailed for Hong Kong?

• Hong Kong's two cruise terminals have not fully recovered from Covid-related lockdown

The great fanfare with which Disney Cruise Line revealed more details about its maiden voyage from Singapore, its first home port in Asia, in 2025 has raised questions over whether Hong Kong has missed the boat.

Although the deal between the cruise line, part of US entertainment giant Walt Disney, and the Singapore government was signed last year, a series of high-profile marketing activities in the city state on Wednesday made waves in Hong Kong.

The cruise line's senior vice-president and general manager, Sharon Siskie, revealed that the new Disney Adventure ship would call Singapore its Asian home port for five years from 2025 and offer three- and four-night voyages.

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"We're bringing the magic of Disney Cruise Line to Asia for the first time ever, and we want to give our guests the cruise relaxation and Disney fun they can only experience aboard one of our ships," she said.

Hong Kong's two deepwater cruise terminals - Ocean Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui and the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal - are still recovering slowly from a three-year Covid-related lockdown.

Jeff Bent, managing director of Worldwide Cruise Terminals which operates the Kai Tak site, said he tried to reach out to Disney during the pandemic in 2022, but in vain.

"It was bad timing," he said. "While Hong Kong was in a lockdown, it was a done deal [between Disney and Singapore]."

In April last year, the Singapore Tourism Board and the cruise line agreed the new 208,000-tonne Disney vessel would berth exclusively in the city state for at least five years. The ship, the company's sixth, can hold 6,000 passengers and will have a crew of 2,300, with seven themed areas.

Bent said Walt Disney would not put all its eggs in one basket and wanted to tap new markets such as Asean as it already had theme parks in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo.

"Having a cruise ship in Singapore is like having a floating theme park in the sea," he said.

Singapore is one of 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, along with Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

An artist's impression of the Disney ship in Singapore. Photo: TNS

Asia will be a new piece in the Disney Cruise Line jigsaw, with the firm already serving the Caribbean, Europe, Canada, Mexico, the South Pacific and elsewhere.

Disney Adventure has been converted from an unfinished ship, Global Dream, that was being built in Germany in 2022 when its owner Genting Hong Kong went bankrupt and subsequently the vessel was sold.

Bent said he visited Orlando, Florida, to meet the cruise line's senior managers but to no avail, as they and the Singaporean government were already discussing a deal.

Exclusivity is a strategy Singapore has used before. US pop diva Taylor Swift's only Southeast Asian stop on her world tour was Singapore, which had signed an exclusive deal with her.

Asked what lessons Hong Kong could learn from missing out on a big player such as Disney Cruise Line, Bent said: "The lesson has to be to keep in close communication with potential partners and investors and help them when they need help.

"Be a solid partner, even when times are tough and show your merit."

The cruise ship deal also turned the tables after Singapore lost out to Hong Kong about 20 years ago on a Disneyland resort. The city promised a large site connected to the international airport and a rail line to the theme park, which debuted in 2005.

Economist Simon Lee Siu-po, an honorary fellow at the Asia-Pacific Institute of Business at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the government needed long-term policies on tourism so global investors would be more comfortable with investments.

"Another thing is government departments should be better coordinated, for example, in how to promote tourism," he said.

Ships docked at Kai Tak Cruise Terminal earlier this year. Photo: Sam Tsang

Frederick Yip, an executive director of one of Hong Kong's largest travel agencies, Goldjoy Group, said the company was among key agents for Disney Adventure cruise products and he expected the new services would fuel intense competition in the region.

"Based on the three-to-four-night voyages, return trips will probably reach Malaysia and Thailand and will not be enough to get to Hong Kong," he said after attending the Disney event on Wednesday.

The Tourism Board said it was continuing to provide support and concessions for overseas and mainland cruise companies to attract more ships to Hong Kong and make the city their home port.

It said it would drive the development of fly-cruise and rail-cruise products.

Bent said the Kai Tak terminal was operating at about half of its pre-pandemic capacity after the borders reopened in January 2023.

He said he did not expect it to return to pre-pandemic levels until after 2026 as cruise companies planned two to three years ahead.

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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.

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