Incheon International Airport Corp. is building a cruise ship terminal near the busy airport 30 miles west of Seoul
The facility, scheduled for completion by 2021 at a cost estimated at KRW200 billion-500 billion (US$176 million-$440 million), is expected to boost passenger traffic in and around the airport to 100 million by 2023 and significantly boost visitation to the new gaming resorts planned for a special tourist zone surrounding the airport.
“The airport is getting bigger, so we need to ensure that more passengers use it,” an IIAC official said.
Visitation from China should see the most significant boost. South Korea’s giant neighbor is already the leading contributor to the country’s tourism economy, and IIAC officials plan to develop tours linking the port of Incheon with Shanghai, Tianjin and Xiamen and connect 100 cruise ships with the route.
Observers expect the number of Asian cruise ship passengers to rise from 910,000 in 2010 to 5.32 million by 2020, 47.4 percent of them Chinese.
The spinoffs will be enormous as well. IIAC officials estimate a single 100,000-ton cruise ship will generate around 1,000 new jobs, while each stop by one of the vessels will generate KRW2.4 billion ($2.1 million) in tourism revenues.
