As cruise shipping tourism activity steadily rebounds to levels seen before the onset of the COVID crisis, Port Tokyo is witnessing an uptick in visits from passenger ships. Now the city's docking facility is operating at full capacity after years of limited service aimed at curbing the pandemic.
Tokyo International Cruise Terminal (Tokyo Bay, Daiba seaside area) is set to accommodate 11 ship visits by the end of March, including Cunard Line's vessel Queen Elizabeth. This represents an increase from 10 visits recorded in the same period last year.
Additionally, April is expected to see 13 ship visits, up from 9 in 2023.
Originally inaugurated in September 2020, Tokyo Cruise Terminal experienced a hiatus in hosting foreign-flagged ships until March 2023 due to the impact of the COVID crisis.
During 2021 and 2022, only a limited number of domestic ships utilized the facility. However, in 2023, the terminal recorded a total of 49 cruise ship calls, according to data from the metropolitan government's port and harbor bureau. The combined figures for March and April 2024 are poised to approach half that total, with seven visits scheduled for May, up from 6 in the previous year.
The decision to construct a new terminal in the Daiba area was prompted by the need to accommodate increasingly larger vessels that exceeded Rainbow Bridge's clearance height - a key passage point for vessels docking at the previous pier in Tokyo's Harumi area. With a growing global trend of cruise ships accommodating more passengers at reduced fares, some vessels surpassed the bridge's 52-meter clearance limit.
To address this challenge, construction on the new terminal commenced in 2015, with completion achieved in June 2020. Official operations commenced 3 months later, coinciding with a period when Japanese authorities had already halted acceptance of foreign cruise ships due to the crisis.