Cruise tourism expected to boom in China

World's largest travel and leisure company Carnival Corporation is planning to further expand its operations in China with the deployment of two additional cruise brands in China in 2017.

"As more and more Chinese are discovering cruising as one of the best vacation experiences, they are having a great time on our Costa and Princess brands, and we look forward to even more Chinese travelers enjoying vacations on our AIDA and Carnival brands, " said Carnival CEO Arnold Donald during an exlculsive interview with China Daily.

The cruise business is growing among technologically savvy, younger Chinese consumers, according to Euromonitor data which charted a 58.4% increase in the size of the market from 2009 to 2014 to $8.1 billion.