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EXPEDITION MARKET

China Is Second The future of adventure travel may end up being found in
Largest Source China, which has become the second largest source market
Market for expedition cruise guests.

Doreen Lin, HHTravel HHTravel is at the forefront of guest sourcing in the Chi-
nese market. The company is run under Ctrip, China’s lead-
ing online travel agency, with HHTravel focusing on high-
end clientele.

Doreen Lin oversees cruise and Antarctica (the Chinese
refer to it as the South Pole) offerings out of a Shanghai of-
fice.

“We have a team of six just focusing on expedition cruis-
es, researching destinations, itineraries, customer needs and
programming,” she told Cruise Industry News.

Lin said the expedition market in China was growing at a
phenomenal rate.

“For the four-month Antarctica season, which is the bulk
of our expedition market, we used to offer 12 sailings per
month in 2015 when we started. This past season, we were
selling 29 sailings per month,” Lin said.

In addition, this past season, Feizhu, a subsidiary of Ali-

“Now agents have moved towards a few
cabins or chartering in blocks, depending
on how many clients they have.”

The Midnatsol and Fram meet in Antarctica baba specializing in online travel bookings, chartered four
Antarctica sailings and sourced around 2,000 Chinese pas-
sengers in total. It plans to charter five sailings in 2019 and
grow sourcing by 25 percent.

For Lin, high-end Chinese guests want to go on expedition
cruises.

“Seventy percent of our cruise business is expedition,” she
said, “and it’s almost all to Antarctica, although we are see-
ing customers now looking at sailings in Iceland, the Arctic,
the Galapagos and coastal Norway. These are clients who
have already done Antarctica and are looking for something
new.”

Demographics

Who are the typical Chinese expedition customers?
HHTravel sees mainly couples between the ages of 40 and
60, with the average ticket price for a 13- to 16-day expedi-
tion reaching between $30,000 and $40,000. A new trend has
appeared though, as guests are getting younger, and includ-
ing more passengers born in the 1980s and 1990s.
“The younger audience wants to show their status,” Lin
said. “While the other cruise markets have guests that tend
to go on cruises in Alaska or the Mediterranean, and then go
on an expedition cruise, China is the opposite. People go to
the poles first and then may go on a more traditional cruise.”
There have also been instances where Lin has sent Chi-

112 Cruise Industry News: 2018 Expedition Market Report