From 2015 to 2016, the cruise industry in China has grown continuously, and it has gradually entered into the key period from the passive supply in the past into the active creation of demand and participation in international market competition, with innovation and hot topics appearing frequently. The specific embodiment is the numerous important events, such as policy support, the whole industry chain building, market competition and capital competition, etc. With the quiet approaching of mass tourism era, the attention of the whole society to this new form of tourism is unprecedented. In order to exactly grasp and comprehensively interpret these events, Shanghai International Cruise Economy Research Institute organized experts and professionals in the industry to focus on and select these events in June 2016, eventually determining ten hot topics of Chinese cruise development from 2015 to 2016, making deep research and analysis to explore its far-reaching influence on social economy and thinking about its development trend in the future.

The events are selected on the principle of investigating and analyzing the depth and breadth of the question involved in the hot topics during cruise tourism development, and taking into account the social attention to the events and the possible significant influence on cruise development in the future, and ultimately ten hot topics are determined. Therefore, for these hot topics the strict logical relevance in the content system isn’t sought for, but the possible crossing hot topics as well as their positive and negative effects of the events are commented on the principle of being objective, fair and realistic.

The ten hot topics of Chinese cruise tourism development from 2015 to 2016:

· Hot topic 1: Shanghai Cruise Tourism Business Norms, the first cruise tourism business norm in China, was issued, boosting the normative development of the market

· Hot topic 2: China State Shipbuilding Corporation, Carnival Cruise Lines and other four parties released their joint declaration on cooperation in cruise industry in Shanghai, opening the way of building the local cruise for the first time in China

· Hot topic 3: Three international cruise giants are optimistic about the market prospects in China, accelerating their transport capacity in China

· Hot topic 4: Shenzhen and Qingdao were approved to be experimental areas for cruise tourism development in China, exploring new paths for and giving new impetus to the cruise development in China

· Hot topic 5: The Tenth China Cruise Industry Development Conference and Seatrade 2016 Global Cruise Industry Conference, etc. were convened to explore new directions in cruise industry development

· Hot topic 6: Cruise lines accelerate the innovation of tourism products, with more obvious Chinese style

· Hot topic 7: The 144 hours visa-free transit policy has been implemented to people from 51 countries in the relevant ports in Yangtze River Delta, promoting the development of inbound cruise tourism

· Hot topic 8: The number of received cruise ships and tourists in Chinese market made a breakthrough in 2015, and China has become the world’s fourth largest cruise market, highlighting the international influence

· Hot topic 9: The policies of Opinions on Further Promoting Tourism Investment and Consumption, etc. have been released, achieving the rapid transformation and upgrading of the cruise industry

· Hot topic 10: Royal Caribbean International has launched its “ordinary group” booking rules, breaking through the traditional operation mode of rental service