A cruise ship takes berth at Tianjin International Cruise Home Port. File photo: Courtesy of Tianjin Dongjiang border inspection station

Boosted by a China travel boom and the adoption of the visa-free entry policy since last May, the number of passengers handled by the Tianjin International Cruise Home Port, the top cruise port in northern China, has seen a steady growth this year, data from the local border inspection authority showed, which indicates a sustained recovery of China's cruise tourism after the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The Tianjin cruise port has facilitated nearly 250,000 inbound and outbound passengers year-to-date, along with 140 cruise ship visits, with the number of foreign passengers exceeding 10,000, the Tianjin Dongjiang border inspection station told Global Times.

Tianjin International Cruise Home Port is the second-largest cruise port in China and a barometer of China's cruise industry.

"Our port is estimated to receive 300,000 inbound and outbound tourist visits this year," said Li Bin, an operations manager with the port.

Chinese cruise market's recovery has lagged behind that of the international market, which redeployed their ships to overseas ports in the past year, taking away some steam of the recovery momentum, Global Times learnt.

In one example, the Royal Caribbean International withdrew its deployment plan to Tianjin originally scheduled between May and October 2025. However, the intensity of recovery of the Chinese market and the purchasing power of some customers in northern part of the country has not go unnoticed to foreign cruise companies, and has let them to reevaluate the potential of the Chinese cruise market, according to Li.

During this year's May Day holiday, three international cruise ships berth simultaneously at Tianjin Port, which was the first time since its resumption of operations.

On May 1, the number of inbound and outbound passengers reached nearly 15,000, with over 400 travelers applying for visa-free entry with a period of 240 hours, per Xinhua.

With the deployment of the Adora Magic City, China's first domestically made large cruise ship, in Tianjin in 2027, which alone will add over 40 voyages to the port, and the possible deployment of MSC World Asia, a mega cruise still under construction, the potential of cruise economy in Tianjin and northern China will be further unleashed in the coming years, Li said.

"So far, our single day peak passenger volume has reached nearly 15,000, which closes on the 17,000 high mark we've seen in 2017 - the pre-epidemic high," Li said.

In 2024, Port of Tianjin in North China handled more than 200 cruise ship voyages in the past year, a sharp increase of 67 percent year-on-year, and passengers surpassed 350,000, up 93 percent year-on-year.

As marine tourism surges in popularity, China has reported that it saw an explosive cruise passengers increase during the first half of 2025, official data showed in earlier August.

The total number of cruise passengers surged 40.1 percent year-on-year during the period, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources. The ministry attributed the surge to the supportive policies and rising travel demand.

From January to June, the marine tourism sector generated an added value of 771.8 billion yuan ($108 billion), which was up 8 percent year-on-year.

As the market further recovers, more progress has also been made in expanding the country's cruise fleet. China's second domestically built large cruise ship, the Adora Flora City, has entered equipment debugging and system functionality verification phase, China Media Group reported earlier.

China's cruise ship industry is projected to generate 500 billion yuan in output value to the country's economy by 2035, People's Daily reported in August 2023.