Busan is good

Mayor Park Heong-joon Announces Strategy to Boost Global Cruise Tourism in 2026: Toward a “Busan Worth Visiting and Revisiting”

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Busan Metropolitan City (Mayor Park Heong-joon) announced that it has established and will fully implement the “2026 Strategy to Revitalize Global Cruise Tourism” to expand cruise tourist attraction and transition toward stay-oriented tourism.

The strategy was designed to strengthen cruise tourism competitiveness in response to the growth of the global cruise market and changing tourist trends. This year, Busan Port is expected to receive 447 cruise calls, with approximately 800,000 visitors anticipated. In particular, a significant increase in cruise arrivals from China is expected to further accelerate tourist inflow.

The city has set the vision of “Busan, a city worth visiting and revisiting by cruise” and will enhance cruise tourism competitiveness through four major strategies and 12 detailed tasks: diversified marketing, improved tourism convenience, upgraded content, and repeat-visit design.

First, through “diversified marketing,” the city will strengthen customized target marketing for global cruise lines and travel agencies. It plans to actively expand cruise calls to Busan by attracting more luxury cruises, promoting overnight stays and homeport (Fly&Cruise) operations, offering incentives for multiple port calls, and organizing familiarization tours.

The city has continuously pursued attraction marketing to diversify markets, achieving results such as hosting a worldwide cruise arrival in January, extending cruise terminal operating hours in February to increase stay duration, and attracting the country’s first air-rail linked (Fly·Rail&Cruise) homeport cruise in March. In April, the city plans to actively engage in marketing activities by participating in Seatrade Cruise Global 2026, the world’s largest cruise industry exhibition.

In the area of “enhancing tourism convenience,” Busan will improve mobility and stay conditions for cruise tourists. It will provide concierge services offering customized tourism information for individual travelers and promote port-of-call programs linked with local travel agency products. In addition, the city will create a comfortable environment for visitors by operating tourist information centers, deploying interpretation staff, running shuttle buses, and expanding multilingual guidance systems.

Under the “content enhancement” strategy, the city will expand experiential tourism content that reflects local uniqueness. Plans include operating tourism programs linked with local festivals, developing nighttime tourism content, offering culinary experiences using regional specialties, and commercializing traditional performances and K-culture content to provide differentiated tourism experiences.

Finally, through “repeat-visit design,” Busan will establish a tourism structure that encourages visitors to return. Initiatives include farewell performances, photo stage operations, renewal of souvenir pop-up zones, promotion linked to social media, and data-driven policy development based on tourist satisfaction surveys.

To support these efforts, the city will, in the short term, strengthen port-of-call competitiveness by expanding cruise calls and enhancing tourism content, while in the mid- to long-term, it will aim to become a global cruise hub city by building an ecosystem of cruise-related industries and improving infrastructure.

Meanwhile, on April 12, the LE SOLEAL, a cruise ship operated by France’s PONANT, will visit Busan for the second time this year as the nation’s first air-rail linked (Fly·Rail&Cruise) homeport cruise.

LE SOLEAL is a luxury vessel of 10,000 tons (142 meters in length and 18 meters in width), with a capacity of 200 passengers, 120 crew members, and 132 cabins. It operates as a 100% foreign passenger homeport cruise with Busan as both departure and arrival port. After its first visit on March 24, it is scheduled to visit Busan a total of four times, including two calls in April and one in May.

With approximately 200 foreign tourists staying in Busan and embarking and disembarking, the initiative is expected to contribute to revitalizing the local economy and hold significant value in expanding the city’s homeport (Fly&Cruise) and semi-homeport base.

The second visit on April 12 will be an overnight cruise, staying for one night and departing on April 13. Busan Metropolitan City and the Busan Tourism Organization will operate a “Night Tour” program for cruise passengers, allowing them to enjoy Busan’s night scenery through visits to Yongdusan Park and the Busan Tower observatory.

Mayor Park Heong-joon stated, “We will establish cruise tourism not as a fleeting experience but as a model that allows visitors to deeply experience and remember the city’s charm, encouraging them to return to Busan.” He added, “As a city rich in marine, cultural, and culinary resources, Busan will actively promote its unique appeal to the world through cruise tourism.”

He further emphasized, “By actively leveraging the recovery of the global cruise market and the increase in demand from China, we will develop Busan into a leading cruise hub in Northeast Asia and a homeport (Fly&Cruise)-centered city.”