With the changes in the way people travel wrought by COVID-19, outer island travel has become one of the top options for Taiwanese domestic tourism with the feeling of overseas travel. Still, the biggest issue with outlying island travel is the lack of resources. For instance, according to statistics from Lion Travel, the reservation volume for Taiwan’s outer islands in July and August this year has been double that of the same period last year. However, both airplane seats and hotel space have been hard to find.

Resolving both transportation and accommodations in one package, at dusk on July 26, the domestic island-hopping cruise ship, Explorer Dream by Dream Cruises, set sail from Keelung, making it the first international cruise ship in the world to resume operation. The pilot boat gave a fancy water spray performance, normally reserved for welcoming ceremonies, as it led the ship out of the harbor.

“The last time a cruise ship set sail from here was probably around February,” said an excited Mr. Lin, a passenger, as he waved goodbye to people on shore.

Island-hopping cruises visit multiple small islands over the course of one tour, setting out from Keelung and making one-night ports of call at Penghu, Matzu, and Kinmen. Pictured: Penghu (photo: Wang Chien-tung)

4-day, 3-night Excursion to Three Islands

The island-hopping tour pays visits to several small islands, setting out from Keelung and stopping at Penghu, Matsu and Kinmen for a day each. Passengers can even enjoy a spectacular Penghu Fireworks Festival performance on the water from the comfort of the ship, offering bored Taiwanese a handy shortcut for getting off the main island of Taiwan.

The pandemic has hit the international travel market hard, with the cruise industry a particularly severe hotspot. Many travel operators believe that it will take at least three years for the cruise line industry to stage a gradual recovery. Yet horns are once again sounding in Keelung harbor after a five-month absence, giving rise to the question of how Taiwan has become the first country to resume cruise line operations.

“Of course, it has to do with our successful containment of the pandemic,” observes Kuo-chen Yu, Lion Travel president of brand strategy. “Ensuring the ship doesn’t leave the country’s borders is the same as domestic travel, so what is the difference between staying on board and going to a shopping center or staying in a hotel?” he says. In contrast to domestic travel sites around Taiwan packed with people, cruise ships on which the number of passengers is limited are not crowded at all.

As early as this January, before the pandemic, Lion Travel had already planned out island-hopping cruise itineraries. As Kuo-chen Yu notes, every summer sees a crunch on airline seat and hotel accommodation availability during the summer Penghu Fireworks Festival season. At the time, their thinking was market-driven, purely setting out a product roadmap, using cruises to ease the pressure on transportation and accommodations on Taiwan’s outlying islands during the high season.

This thinking planted the seeds for Taiwan to become the first to resume cruise line operations.

Onboard negative pressure isolation cabins

Under the original island-hopping itinerary, planning began in March, taking six weeks to formulate related pandemic response measures and procedures, e.g. how to transport suspected cases when in port. Would 22 negative pressure isolation cabins be enough? Upon submitting the application and after more than two months of constant discussion, authorization was finally granted on June 30.

Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay, chairman and CEO of Genting Hong Kong, relates that the company has been preparing to resume operations over the past few months. Working with DNV GL, the world’s largest registrar and classification society, they established new protocols for contagion risk management and containment accreditation (CIP-M) for marine enterprises with the characteristics of cruise liners in mind. As a result, the Explorer Dream is the world’s first cruise ship to obtain CIP-M marine enterprise contagion risk management and control accreditation. 

After going on board for inspection, Professor Hsiu-hsi Chen, assistant dean of the National Taiwan University College of Public Health, offered his assessment, saying “The Explorer Dream is well prepared, with two or three times the frequency required for Taiwan CDC ratings.”

For instance, guest staterooms and public areas are outfitted with new air circulation systems. An open circulation design, it ensures that air does not flow back, so that only clean air enters the staterooms. Further, inner cabins with no windows are not offered for sale, limiting the number of passengers to just 926, or one-third of full capacity.

In the effort to maintain social distance, all on-board cafeterias and dining halls have ceased buffet meal service and adopted staggered dining schedules. This way, from seating to queues and elevators, spacing can be maintained, which naturally results in additional time waiting in line.

Next island-hopping step: ‘round-island cruises

With the upcoming seasonal northeasterly winds in October, will island-hopping cruises still be appropriate?

According to Yu, the next wave of product will be around-the-island cruises. Keelung, Hualian, Taichung, and Kaohsiung are all international ports suitable for making direct ports of call, giving them even more potential for development given Taiwan’s relatively abundant tourism resources compared to Penghu and Matsu, which also require tenders to take passengers ashore.

Kaohsiung is a natural excellent world-class harbor, boasting the Pier-2 Art Center and Kaohsiung Music Center right nearby. Upon disembarking, the Sanduo shopping district and Dream Mall are within walking distance. And after the ship docks in Keelung, passengers can disembark and explore the old city on foot.

While the country’s doors remain closed, Yu believes that domestic tourism will no longer be a matter of two-day getaways or day trips, as people will plan out excursions of longer duration. 

“Cruises offer the closest feeling to overseas travel. We look forward to more cruises joining in, and the emergence of options of longer duration” to help make domestic tourism in Taiwan more sophisticated and fun.