China Tourism Group has announced that it will helm a broad effort to reinvigorate the nation’s cruise sector through the unification of management across several home-grown brands.
The initiative forms part of a wider governmental campaign to gather promising but underperforming industries into more cohesive structures. To that end, a new venture, Huaxia, has been launched under the joint auspices of China Tourism and China COSCO Shipping Group, tasked at the outset with overseeing five Chinese-flag cruise vessels.
In late November, the parties held a signing ceremony that formalized the alignment of the participating brands and marked the debut of Star Cruises, a Huaxia division dedicated to fleet management. China Tourism holds a substantial share of the new enterprise, while COSCO and China Merchants each maintain significant minority positions. The resulting framework draws together four state-owned entities, including the cruise branches of COSCO, China Merchants Group, and China State Shipbuilding Corporation.
Although the brands—among them Adora Cruises, operator of China’s first large, domestically built cruise liners—will retain their identities, they will sail henceforth under Huaxia’s central direction. Adora itself now belongs entirely to China State Shipbuilding, having evolved from an earlier joint venture with Carnival Corporation that saw Carnival gradually step back to a minority stake. The brand entered service in 2023 and delivered its inaugural newbuild in early 2024.
The combined fleet will encompass vessels such as Adora Magic City, Adora Mediterranea, Piano Land, Nanhai Dream, and the still-building Adora Flora City. With roughly 16,000 berths between them, the unified operation is projected to become Asia’s largest cruise provider by capacity. Authorities describe the consolidation as a drive toward greater efficiency, enabling shared overhead and clearer coordination across the fleet.
Domestic reporting, however, notes that China’s cruise trade continues to wrestle with thin margins and a slow post-pandemic return, further hampered by the nation’s delayed reopening to both domestic and foreign-flag cruise traffic. Even before the global shutdown, many international lines had eased their presence in the region, remarking that the market lacked mature sales channels, as voyages are often sold through groups or intermediaries rather than direct marketing.
Chinese officials, on the other hand, continue to emphasize the industry’s potential, pointing to what they describe as powerful economic multipliers generated by cruise spending—figures they estimate at up to fourteen times the cost of a ticket when accounting for provisions and auxiliary services.
China Tourism Group now turns its attention to growth as it readies for the arrival of the country’s second large, domestically constructed cruise ship. Adora Flora City, launched earlier this year, is slated for delivery in late 2026. Alongside the state-backed operators, private ventures have begun to take root as well; one such company, Tianjin Orient Cruise Line, recently acquired Costa Magica (a former Costa vessel), which has already made its delivery transit through the Suez Canal.
Tourism officials report that passenger traffic at Chinese ports rose markedly during the first nine months of 2025, increasing by more than a quarter and surpassing two million travelers—figures they cite as evidence that the nation’s maritime leisure trade is beginning to gather way once more.