An international cruise ship docks at its home port of Qingdao. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Shandong Cruise Tourism Development Forum was held on March 27 in Qingdao, Shandong province as part of the 2023 Shandong Tourism Development Conference.

Deng Yunfeng, vice-governor of Shandong, noted in his speech that cruise tourism is a high-end tourism form and a new growth point for the high-quality development of China's marine economy.

According to Deng, Shandong enjoys unique advantages with top facilities, rich cultural and tourist resources, as well as a broad tourist market to develop cruise tourism, adding that the provincial government has rolled out a slew of measures to boost the high-quality development of this sector.

Qingdao city seeks to live in harmony with its maritime environment. [Photo by Zhang Jianhua/For China Daily]

At the forum, the coastal city of Qingdao issued supportive measures to boost the high-quality development of local cruise tourism. The Qingdao International Cruise Port Area and other projects were promoted at the event to attract investment.

The Shandong Coastal City Tourism Alliance member units were also licensed at the forum, while a batch of cruise tourism routes were also launched at the forum.