For many Chinese people, the classic film Princess Sissi, which aired for years on CCTV’s Movie Channel, offered them a glimpse of romantic Western royal culture.
As the princess sailed down the Danube in the name of love, she was greeted by magnificent European churches, ancient classical architecture, modern art centers, and the vibrant life of Europe’s great cities along both banks.
For many Chinese people, the classic film Princess Sissi, which aired for years on CCTV’s Movie Channel, offered them a glimpse of romantic Western royal culture. As the princess sailed down the Danube in the name of love, she was greeted by magnificent European churches, ancient classical architecture, modern art centers, and the vibrant life of Europe’s great cities along both banks.
Feng Lian, Chairman of StarRiver Cruises & General Manager of Hengtai International Travel Service
Breaking the Old to Establish the New
With its unique history, culture and humanistic charm, Europe has long been one of the most ideal tourist destinations for Chinese travelers. Countries and cities along the Danube and Rhine, in particular, attract a large number of domestic tourists for their profound historical and cultural heritage. Compared with the past sightseeing tours characterized by "quantity" — such as tours covering 10 countries — Chinese outbound tourists to Europe have gradually begun to prefer and value the pursuit of "quality". The traditional multi-country sightseeing model is shifting from "9 days, 10 countries" rushed tours to independent travel and in-depth experience tours.
"StarRiver Cruises currently focuses on group tours on inland river cruises. In 2019, we will launch packaged and personalized packages to enrich our river cruise products.At present, we take conventional European group tours as our reference: the superficial, hurried itinerary, crossing one country per day, changing hotels every night, long and tiring bus rides, and serious product homogeneity, which in turn erode travel agencies’ profits.Therefore, we are not targeting independent travelers; our core strength is to offer a real alternative to bus tours."
StarRiver Cruises, created by Beijing Hengtai International Travel Service, is China’s first global inland river cruise operator.In May 2016, the Danube Concerto, operated by StarRiver Cruises, made its successful maiden voyage on the Danube.It was the first inland river cruise in Europe dedicated to Chinese tourists, as well as the world’s first overseas inland river cruise operated by a Chinese team.
To help Chinese consumers better embrace this premium way of traveling by cruise, StarRiver Cruises has carried out in-depth market integration and innovation on its products, making them more aligned with the consumption habits of Chinese travelers and encouraging them to “see Europe in a new way”.
In terms of product design, leveraging Hengtai International Travel’s years of experience in custom tour development, StarRiver Cruises integrates departure flights from China and abundant European local reception resources to create all-inclusive, in-depth travel products.As a professional cruise operation and service brand, StarRiver Cruises has further refined its services specifically for the Chinese market.“In the past, most inland river cruises did not offer services in Chinese, which made it difficult for guests to fully enjoy their journey.
Therefore, from the very beginning, we have provided Chinese-speaking staff to offer thoughtful and detailed services to our Chinese guests.We have Chinese chefs preparing delicious meals tailored to Chinese tastes, while local chefs also provide regional specialties along the route to satisfy guests’ desire for new flavors.In addition, breakfast and dinner are served with ample time, usually two to three hours for each meal.We also offer entertainment facilities favored by Chinese guests, such as mahjong rooms, saunas, and a cinema.Furthermore, the ship is equipped with a bar that can accommodate all passengers and full accessibility facilities for people with disabilities.One particularly convenient detail: after guests arrive and our coach takes them to the dock, the crew will deliver all luggage directly to their cabins.Guests do not need to carry or drag their luggage at any point during the trip.” 
The cruise also offers free bicycles and free Wi-Fi—an essential service for Chinese outbound tourists. This was the first river cruise in Eastern Europe to provide free Wi-Fi, for which communication resources across multiple countries were coordinated. 
As the first inland river cruise company to “take the plunge”, the momentum of “no breakthrough, no progress” demonstrated by StarRiver Cruises under the leadership of Feng Lian embodies the courage of an enterprise seeking transformation and breakthrough.
Combining strengths for greater efficiency
However, lofty ideals must always face harsh reality.As the classic Hollywood film Forrest Gump puts it: “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.”StarRiver Cruises gained a profound understanding of this saying after introducing Danube river cruise products to China.To quickly bring products to the market and build a bridge to end consumers, StarRiver had to work with its channel partners to ensure efficient and fast product distribution and market penetration.Yet this cooperation model, similar to the chartered cruise model with Chinese characteristics, left StarRiver with mixed feelings:On one hand, it appreciated the regional professional network, distribution capabilities, and financial strength of its industry partners.On the other hand, it worried that due to differences and limitations in business philosophy, marketing capabilities, market management, and cultural values, some industry distributors might even act contrary to StarRiver’s strategic goals by conducting direct procurement or direct operation.
A crude and simplistic distribution model is only a way to quickly launch products in the early stage, but it will definitely come at the cost of profits across our industry.At the same time, this requires me to diversify our product portfolio to meet the needs of channels beyond major wholesalers.For example, we integrate resources such as air tickets, visas, and ground services, and launch them as truly packaged products to the market.In this era where many focus on “winning at the start”, people have forgotten the once-glorious strategy of “winning at the end”.
Albert Einstein once said:“One atom is nothing, but when two atoms collide, they can produce the power of 130,000 tons of TNT.”StarRiver is no different.To achieve growth, we must partner and cooperate with others.If Liu Bei had not found Zhuge Liang, there would have been no legendary ruler‑minister partnership in Chinese history.Therefore, we will work with our distribution channels to build a scientific customer management system, achieve precision marketing, attract repeat customers, and make our services more sticky.
Focus on execution with steady advancement
Compared with traditional European tour products offered by Chinese travel agencies, inland river cruises provide tourists with a brand-new overseas lifestyle.While allowing travelers to fully immerse themselves in European charm, they also eliminate the hassle of moving between hotels in different cities.Therefore, the river cruise market has long been a highly contested battleground in the international tourism industry.Take Europe as an example: there are 170 luxury river cruises operating on the Danube and Rhine, which are extremely popular among travelers.As a downstream industry, river cruising has also become an important part of the local economy and culture.In contrast, the number of cruise ships on the Yangtze River, which has similar sailing routes, is less than one quarter of that figure.This has also attracted great interest from companies other than StarRiver.At the opening ceremony of the 2017 Cruise & Yacht Tourism Festival, Ctrip and Chongqing Century Cruise jointly announced the establishment of a joint venture to enter the luxury cruise market in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.This marked Ctrip’s re-entry into the inland river cruise industry, following its investment in SkySea Cruise Line in 2014 and Happy Captain Cruise in 2016.Since all departure ports for overseas river cruises are located abroad, tourists must apply for a Schengen visa and fly to the departure city.Given that some customers are used to low-cost cruise products and some travel agencies hold conservative attitudes, will Ctrip’s expansion in the supply and product diversity of luxury river cruises in China divert customers who would otherwise choose overseas river cruises? 
First of all, the market is optimistic about “river cruise +” products. Besides Ctrip, more new river cruise brands will emerge soon.Second, even industry giants like Ctrip are seeking cooperation. StarRiver is also looking for strategic partnerships with large companies.In the river cruise industry alone, if we only count the 6-day 5-night onboard experience, the current capacity is about 2 million passengers. The onboard market value is at most just over 3 to 4 billion yuan.Within the entire tourism industry, such a single product lacks vitality and limited room for growth.
Therefore, since we started river cruises, we have only regarded it as part of our main business, while focusing more on what we call high-margin industries.For example, the ground service sector — transportation, accommodation, tour guides, catering — is indispensable.We also carry out in-depth integrated development based on the six core elements of tourism combined with river cruise products.Brands such as Swarovski are already in talks with us about opening stores on our river cruises.We have also thought about towns like Dürnstein along the route, where we stay for a long time but there are very few souvenir shops.Chinese tourists enjoy buying souvenirs when traveling abroad.To meet this demand, we are even considering developing affordable luxury crystal brands, since there is hardly another similar brand besides Swarovski, as well as popular cultural and creative products.In short, beyond cruise tickets, all supporting onboard services are the real profit points.This new way of traveling in Europe — combining relaxed comfort and in-depth cultural experiences — offers visitors a rare opportunity to explore off-the-beaten-path destinations in Europe.
However, as the market becomes fully competitive, consumers usually end up remembering only two brands in the same category and choosing between them.“This is what I see as the market challenge.Our positioning is to become a local Viking Cruises.Viking is a great example and benchmark, but the market urgently needs a Chinese-owned inland river cruise brand to emerge as soon as possible.We have even discussed how to bring China’s shipbuilding technology and Chinese vessels to Europe — these are all future opportunities and possibilities.Market competition eventually follows the classic pattern: from fragmented rivalry to oligopolistic competition.StarRiver will focus on steady, down-to-earth execution, quickly forming strong alliances and cross empowerment, sharing synergistic development, and building China’s leading brand in the river cruise industry.”
Source: Travel Agency News Network
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