Cruise ships' short transit time hurting sightseeing: survey

Published : Mar 30, 2017 - 15:45 Updated : Mar 30, 2017 - 15:45

The transit time of cruise ships docking in South Korea has decreased in recent years, a survey showed Thursday, leading to calls for the country to promote major tourist attractions near ports and get cruise operators to stay longer.

The average transit time was 7.6 hours last year, according to the survey of 2,043 cruise tourists by the Korea Tourism Organization.

The comparable figures were 8.9 hours in 2014 and 8.2 hours in 2015.

About 34.7 percent of those questioned said they were dissatisfied by the lack of time for sightseeing.

(Yonhap)

By nationality, Chinese cruise tourists stayed for 7.6 hours on average and Japanese 4.7 hours.

By port, the cruise tourists stayed the longest at Incheon Port (14.5 hours), followed by Jeju Port for 7.1 hours and Busan Port for 6.5 hours.

Chinese tourists accounted for 72 percent, or 1.64 million, out of the total cruise tourists that reached 2.25 million last year.

Chinese cruise tourists spent 2.7 hours on shopping during their time on shore.

Only 16.2 percent of Chinese cruise tourists visited sightseeing destinations nearby, which require paid admission.

The figure is slightly less than 17.4 percent for all cruise tourists.

"The gradual decrease in the transit time is a major factor undermining the satisfaction of the sightseeing at the ports where the cruise tourists visit," a KTO official said. "We need to come up with measures to increase the transit time to a certain degree." (Yonhap)