International cruise ships have been showing increasing interest in homeporting in Keelung Taiwan to tap into the growing regional ship cruising market.
In 2017, Princess Cruises unveiled a plan to make Taiwan's city the home port for 3 of its cruise liners. This year Star Cruises made a similar announcement.
The two decisions are expected to fuel the boom in cruise ship arrivals at the port and help drive up the cruise visitor numbers in Taiwan to around 1.24 million in 2018.
Last year Princess Cruises started using Keelung as homeport for Majestic Princess on its turnaround voyages, and will do the same with Diamond Princess and Sun Princess this year.
Currently, Keelung is a homeport to Star Cruises' SuperStar Virgo and SuperStar Aquarius. SuperStar Gemini will also join this year.
Last year, cruise ship arrivals in Taiwan grew by 32% to a record 1.14 million from around 860,000 in 2016, propelling the country into 2nd place in Asia in terms of cruise tourism.