As the luxury travel market begins to recover from a slump, Shanghai is weighing the idea of creating a downtown dock to entice more international cruise lines to visit the city.

A seminar was held Tuesday on Star Cruises' Superstar Leo.

City officials, members of the media and travel agencies, and Star Cruises' senior managers gathered to discuss how to develop the "cruise economy of Shanghai."

The consensus was unanimous: The city is eager to become the 14th seaport in the world to give birth to an international cruise dock.

If successful, Shanghai will also become the first Chinese city to do so.

Lack of a cruise-ship dock means the visitors, no matter how rich or how senior they are, have to be carried or walk to another place for the Customs check.

"In August last year, our company's ship, Superstar Leo, paid the first visit to Shanghai, and the 2,800 visitors had to walk in the rain to the Customs service room which is about 800 meters away," said Yu Jianmeng, president of Star Cruises' Business Operations & Development China.

Star cruises plans to invest 10 billion yuan on establishing a "cruise city," in which about 900 million yuan will be spent on setting up the dock and the rest used for the facilities such as department stores and banks, according to Yu.

"But it is still in the planning stage, and we will respect any decision from the local government," he said.

In 2002, more than 30 cruise ships visited Shanghai, bringing about 50,000 visitors and generating 50 million yuan (US$6 million) in revenue from retail sales, refueling and maintenance fees.

Star cruises, the world's No 3 cruise company, has sent three cruises to Shanghai seven times, and the inconvenience prompted it to propose to the local government for co-building a dock.

"The lack of cruise reception fits neither the image of Shanghai nor the development of the economy," Yu said.

Cruises calling on Shanghai now have three docks to choose from. One is in Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone.

Though it is far from downtown, the dock has the deepest water level, which allows ships with tonnage up to 100,000 gross tons to dock.

The others are Wusong Dock and Gaoyang/Gongping Dock.

 (Xinhua News Agency October 8, 2003)