Hiroshima-based Tsuneishi Group has made a start on breaking into the passengership market by building a mini cruiseship.
Although not listed in its shipbuilding schedules, it has emerged the Hiroshima yard has quietly been constructing an 82-metre long luxury cruise vessel aimed at the high-end domestic market.
The vessel, to be named Guntu, has been launched and is scheduled to start operating in September this year.
It will be operated by the Tsuneishi Group parent company Tsuneishi Holdings, offering three-night cruises around the Inland Sea.
The new cruise business fits in with Tsuneishi Holding’s leisure and resort facilities and will operate from its Bella Vista resort complex in Onomichi.
Tsuneishi Shipbuilding has been expanding out of the bulk carrier business with which it is usually associated. More recently it has been winning orders for aframax tankers and now passengerships.
Sources close to the company say it has high hopes for the passengership business as a shipbuilder and operator and has used the Guntu project to slowly break its way into the business.
Japanese yards have had problems in the passenger market in the past, most notably huge losses at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in building 200,000-gt cruise ships for Aida Cruises.
Tsuneishi was earlier reported to be behind a 500-passenger-capacity cruise ship at its Chinese yard Tsuneishi Zoushan for delivery in 2020.
Again the vessel is to be owned and operated within the Tsuneishi Group but aimed at the emerging Chinese cruise market.
